L. Russell Brown with Ray Bloodworth in the mid-1960s, and working for Bob Crewe, he wrote the hits "C'mon Marianne" and "Watch the Flowers Grow" for the Four Seasons. "C'mon Marianne" featured in "Jersey Boys", the Broadway musical. With Crewe, Brown also wrote "Sock It to Me Baby!", a 1967 hit for Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Brown started writing with Irwin Levine in 1970, and found success with several hits for Dawn, including "Knock Three Times", "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" - both songs reaching #1 in the US and UK – and "Say, Has Anybody Seen
Tony Orlando that followed Watergate. He represented simple, traditional values, a conservative return to pure entertainment. He drew a happy face in the "O" of his autograph. It was not terribly cool, but America loved him." The "Tony Orlando and Dawn" Show on CBS became a hit, a summer replacement for the "Sonny & Cher" show, and ran for four seasons from 1973 to 1976. It welcomed the biggest names in show business each week as Orlando's guests, including his boyhood idols, Jackie Gleason and Jerry Lewis. At the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, Orlando danced to the tune