Irwin Levine Irwin Levine Irwin Jesse Levine (March 23, 1938 – January 21, 1997) was an American songwriter, who co-wrote the song "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" with L. Russell Brown. The song was a worldwide hit for Tony Orlando and Dawn as it reached number one on both the US and UK charts for four weeks in April 1973 and number one on the Australian charts for seven weeks from May to July 1973. It was the top-selling single in 1973 in both the US and UK. In 2008, "Billboard" ranked the song as the 37th biggest
Tony Orlando and Dawn (TV series) entirely, and by 1970 he was a retired demo singer. He began publishing music for April-Blackwood Music, a division of Columbia Records, instead. Then Orlando received "Candida", a song that other producers and singers had turned down. Orlando was not able to originally lend his name to the song, as he was working for April-Blackwood, and recording under his own name would be a professional conflict of interest. After an insistence by producer Hank Medress that he dub his voice over the male vocals on the original track, the single was released on Bell Records as being performed by the