The first number one song of 1971 was actually “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison which stayed at the top until January 23 when Dawn took over the top spot.

Tony Orlando was the brains behind Dawn. The group was to later go by three different names, Dawn, featuring Tony Orlando and Tony Orlando and Dawn in much the same way as Diana Ross and the Supremes. Tony was born Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis in 1944 in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. By the age of fifteen, he was singing doo-wop on the corners of the city with a group called The Five Gents. He was noticed by Don Kirshner, probably the most well known publisher in the music business in the Sixties. He brought Tony to the Brill Building which was a heaven for songwriters. There he met people like Carol King and Neil Sedaka. Kirshner hired Tony as a songwriter and at the age of sixteen, he recorded two Top 40 songs, “Halfway to Paradise” which reached 39 on the charts and “Bless You” which got up to thirteen.

Now, these weren’t fantastic hits and so Tony was taken off the duty of actually singing the hits and just writing them, which he did for the next ten years. By 1970, he was working at Apple-Blackwood Music as a writer and he met Hank Medress who was a former member of the group The Tokens (remember “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”?) He had a song he wanted Tony to sing. Tony said he gave up singing ten years ago. The song was called “Candida” and they finally convinced Tony to sing the song. Jay Seigel, another member of The Tokens had a daughter whose middle name was Dawn, so they called they group Dawn. Singing along with Tony were two girls, Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson. The three of them became Dawn.

“Candida” was a hit, reaching number three, so they recorded another song, “Knock Three Times.” This time, they went to number one. “Knock Three Times” was written by L Russell Brown and Irwin Levine. It is said that they were thing about the song “Up on the Roof” which was done by the Drifters in 1962. They wanted a tenement story. It is also claimed in some sources that it is Toni Wine and Linda November who are actually singing on the record and that the two that are called Dawn didn’t come along until later. Whatever the true story is, Hopkins and Wilson became the true Dawn as they went on to record many more hits as well as two more number ones.

“Knock Three Times” entered the pop charts on December 5, 1970 and reached number one the week of January 23, 1971 where it stayed for three weeks.