The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia early 1973. Lawrence was, at the time, a regular performer on the ensemble variety comedy television show "The Carol Burnett Show"; on the final episode of the sixth season (March 24, 1973), Burnett surprised Lawrence by presenting her with an RIAA gold record for over a million copies sold. The song also scored number six on the Easy Listening chart, and it peaked at number 36 on "Billboard"'s Hot Country Singles chart. It was number one for two weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and was finally topped by Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole
Tony Orlando and Dawn its predecessor (with sketches featuring sarcastic back-and-forth banter between Orlando, Hopkins and Vincent, similar to the sarcastic dialogue between Sonny and Cher) and became a Top 20 hit. With a new record label (Elektra), the group continued their string of hit singles during the show's run, hitting the Top 10 on the Hot 100 and adult contemporary charts, including "He Don't Love You (Like I Love You)" (a reworking of Jerry Butler's "He Will Break Your Heart") (#1), from the album of the same name, and "Mornin' Beautiful" (#14). In 1975 a remake of the Sam Cooke song "Cupid", from