L. Russell Brown L. Russell Brown Lawrence "Larry" Russell Brown (born June 29, 1940), known as L. Russell Brown, is an American lyricist and composer. He is most noted for his songs, co-written with Irwin Levine, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" and "Knock Three Times"—international hits for the 1970s pop music group Tony Orlando and Dawn. He also co-wrote "C'mon Marianne" for The Four Seasons, and The Partridge Family 1971 song, "I Woke Up In Love This Morning". Born in Newark, New Jersey, Brown began his songwriting career when he was sixteen with the R&B label Fury Records. Co-writing
An Oak Tree Catholic background and was an altar boy. He sees belief of both artist and viewer as having a key place in art, and that in "An Oak Tree" he had "deconstructed the work of art in such a way as to reveal its single basic and essential element", namely this belief. "An Oak Tree" was a turning point in his artistic development: prior to it his concern had been deconstruction, and afterwards he was "trying to put the pieces together again." Subsequently, using the rationale of Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain", he worked with drawings of utilitarian objects and flat areas of