Wind-"Make Believe"

Bill, I heard different info on Tony Orlando's late-60's mindset. After his
two Top 40 early 60s solo hits on Epic, by '64, now married with a child,
he transitioned into the business end of music. By the late 60's, he headed
up the songwriter publishing arm of CBS, April-Blackwood Music. Not all
songwriters can bang out a suitable demo of their latest output, to get
passed around by the labels for a possible big-artist release. But everyone
knew Tony was a nice guy, could obviously carry a tune, and would
frequently help writers out by singing demo versions. (Columbia didn't
really mind, as long as he put in his hours and did his 9-5 job.) For
example, just months before "Make Believe" hit, his demo of "I Was A Boy
(When You Needed A Man)" was released on the Buddah-distributed
Harbour label #304. But Orlando had no plans to reactivate his own
singing career/abandon his lucrative gig, so he requested that the label
not use his real name on it. So they used "Billy Shields". This song bubbled
under the Hot 100, and got some CT airplay. My understanding was
always that "Make Believe" was simply another example of Tony helping
out some old buddies, while again insisting on anonymity. (Any bad blood
surely came from Bo Gentry & Co., who no doubt then wanted
more personal involvement from Orlando than he'd signed up for, once
the song hit.) Actually, Orlando still had the exact same mindset for
Dawn's 1970 "Candida" 45. When it was a current, I clearly remember my
local AM radio DJ saying "No one can find out a thing about who's
actually in this group!" Which wasn't all that unusual at the time - fake
groups, like the Cuff Links, Pipkins, The Archies, etc. were also having
hits. It wasn't until Dawn's huge follow-up hit, "Knock Three Times" in
early '71, when Orlando finally decided to quit his publishing job, jump
back into the music biz full-time, hire session singers Telma Hopkins and
Joyce Vincent (who did not sing on either of Dawn's first two hits), and
start recording and touring full-time. This almost appeared to be a
terrible mistake, since as soon as Tony did this, Dawn's next 6 singles all
missed the Top 20. Until, finally, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" hit #1, in the
Spring of 1973.

Edited by jimct