In the 50 years since Tony Orlando & Dawn debuted “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree” to salute POWs returning from the Vietnam War, the bulletproof anthem helped raise money in the hundreds of millions for countless veterans.

The chart-topping crooner continues paying tribute to the troops while touring regularly to this very day, setting sights on the Hard Rock Live Northern Indiana on Saturday, May 13 where he’ll share a bill with buddy Wayne Newton.

Like “Mr. Las Vegas,” Orlando is showbiz royalty, who during a phone conversation with Chicago Concert Reviews, spoke about local radio legend Dick Biondi’s early support, eventually drawing Super Bowl-level ratings for a television variety show named after the group, which made history as the very first of its genre to feature multi-racial co-stars, along with the unforeseen legacy of his signature song.

What’s in store for your show at the Hard Rock Live?

Tony Orlando: It’s two guys who’ve been around a long time, been friends for a long time and both of us working all these years in Las Vegas. This is my 54th year headlining Las Vegas [out of] 62 years in show business. Wayne and I, we’ve accomplished a resume that we’re both very proud of and now we’re able to get together on one stage. It will be fun…By the way, Wayne and I both share April 3 as our birthday, oddly enough (laughs). I’m 79 and he’s 82, but we’re still 49 in our bodies, and thank God, in our health.

What comes to mind when you think of previous visits to the area?

Orlando: I’ve worked for a theatre there a long time called the Arcada Theatre and I’ve enjoyed my time there. So many of my friends come from Chicago. What comes to mind, truthfully, was my very first time [I came in] 1961. I went in to do an interview at WLS. Dick Biondi was the first one to have me on his show and is still a good friend by the way. I had a record that started at WLS. If you could get on that show, you would be guaranteed a hit. Sure enough, Carole King’s first hit and my first hit was called “Halfway To Paradise.” She wrote it, produced and arranged it. I sang it. I was a 16-year-old singer at WLS with the great Dick Biondi. That’s my memory.

This is the 50th anniversary of “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree.” How has that milestone brought additional perspective to the song?

Orlando: The song has gone beyond a hit song really. The writers who wrote that song were Irwin Levine and Larry Brown. I was just the mailman that delivered the letter because imagine you recorded a song 50 years ago and the first time you ever sang it was to welcome home our POWs from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Just imagine that you walk on stage and Bob Hope is introducing you. You have never sung this song live and you did not know if it was going to be a hit or not. You walk out to welcome home 500 POWs, some of the bravest men I’ve ever met, and then this song goes on to raise hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of veterans because of that association with the POWs. As a matter of fact, this coming May I will be, fortunately, the host of a 50th anniversary of their homecoming at the Nixon Library down in California. I get to do this reunion with them every single year for 50 straight years since that show. That song has provided money for those who were wounded in the war, for those who don’t have a van to get to stores [and for] wheelchairs. It has provided so much because I’ve used that song as a tool to raise money on behalf of veterans for the last 50 years. If I’ve done nothing else in show business, or any business, that’s the proudest days of my life.

It really is amazing that a song can have that kind of power, not a person. Music goes way above a person. There are no borders when it comes to music. None. You’re welcomed by every country in the world. You’re a guest the moment you have a song out that becomes notable in their country. I’ve seen music change lives, change cities, change people, give people strength. I’ve seen things happen because of music and there’s an example of that in “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree.” That song has had yellow ribbons tied around the Astrodome and on top of the space shuttle in honor of homecoming veterans.

What was it like at the peak of Tony Orlando & Dawn’s powers?

Orlando: It was a dream come true when you’re in the middle of something like that. You don’t realize what’s happened until its retrospective. While it’s going on, you’re just in the middle of it all. It’s like being in the middle of a thunderstorm and then you don’t really talk about it until the storm is over. You look back and go, “Wow, did you see that lightning?” It’s the same thing with something like what happened to me, Telma [Hopkins] and Joyce [Vincent Wilson], the three of us being in show business and ending up, with a network television show. By the way, the only multi-racial group to ever have a prime time show since then. We’re very proud that at eight o’clock on every Wednesday night, these two African American girls from Detroit and this Greek-Arican from New York found themselves being the first multi-racial group to ever own a prime time hour variety show…

Sonny & Cher were off the air when we came on. They broke up and divorced, and then we were told by most people in television that there would never be another variety show other than Carol Burnett, that variety was over. When we came on in the summer of ‘74, it was three groups that were vying for a time for a national show and that was, of course, The Hudson Brothers, and us, and Bobbie Gentry. We won the ratings. We had like 35 million people watch every week, so we went on with our regular show and it was at that time that we really sat alone. Then Cher came back by herself the following year at CBS and also Donny & Marie [Osmond] came on. CBS proved that variety was alive and well and it went on for several years. After that for us, four years, then we were canceled. Listen to this. We were canceled with a 37 share. Now what a 37 share means is that approximately 37 million, 40 million people were watching you. If you gave me those numbers today, that would probably be the Super Bowl. That doesn’t happen anymore because we have so many stations. Then there were only three networks: ABC, NBC, CBS. There was no cable. There was no internet. The pie was very small. They canceled us with the numbers that we see today with the Super Bowl. Isn’t that crazy?

How do you feel about music and show business at the moment?

Orlando: I think it’s better than ever. I think today’s talent, young writers and performers, are better and more well equipped than ever. Why? Cause they grew up watching all kinds of videos. They understand dance. Michael Jackson taught them that. When they became a hit record artist, they not only had to be able to sing great, they had to be able to write great. They had to be Paul McCartney as a writer. They had to be Michael Jackson as a dancer. They were forced to be multi-talented, so today’s young people, I think, are more talented than ever before. I think they write, dance, understand what the camera is and act better than ever. I think you take someone like Taylor Swift and you look at her career. What is it that makes Taylor Swift draw 80,000 people into the Allegiant Arena in Las Vegas? What is it that makes Taylor Swift crush Ticketmaster? Well, when you analyze it, you realize it’s her writing talent. When you examine this young lady’s writing ability, her poetry, her storytelling in a song, it’s almost supernatural. That’s how talented she is, so the young people in this country, they relate to not only melody, but they can relate more to a lyric, and when that lyric touches their heart and represents their relationships or their lifetime, that’s what makes Taylor Swift the super, giant star. She may be one of the biggest recording artists in history because not many people, maybe The Beatles and Elvis, can draw 80,000 people by herself. That is everywhere she goes around the world, not just the United States, but around the world. So these young people are so well equipped and she’s an example of that.

Can you take us back to when you started as a songwriter during such a fertile era surrounding the Brill Building?

Orlando: I started as a writer/singer in 1961. People say it’s the Brill Building. The Brill Building was in Tin Pan Alley, but there was another building across the street that doesn’t get credited. It’s called 1615 Broadway. The difference between 1615 Broadway and the Brill Building is the Brill Building was mostly filled with writers that wrote for Broadway shows and for the ‘40s and ‘30s. The building across the street, 1615 Broadway, was younger rock and roll writers, and folk writers, so you had Carole King, James Taylor, Bert Berns of Bang Records and Neil Diamond. We do say “Brill Building” cause it makes it easy, but just for the record, there was another building that housed these great, wonderful, young writers and performers. I was privileged and blessed to be part of that, so in the Don Kirshner office, my producer and writer was by the name of Jack Keller, [plus there was] Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. All four of them are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and, of course, won Academy Awards for their music writing. Carole, in her own right, became a multi-million selling album artist in “Tapestry,” so we all grew up together in that building. I was only 16-years-old. Then when The Beatles hit, I had to look for work and I ended up working for Clive Davis as his Vice President at CBS, running the music division when I was only 23-years-old. God has blessed me with an amazing career and so has the audience that’s out there that continue to come. God bless them. I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

How do you look back on your time as a record label executive?

Orlando: I signed Barry Manilow. I was right about one star for sure. I remember representing James Taylor, so I was representing one of the great writers of all time. I look at that period of time as a privilege to be able to work with some of the great songwriters and artists, and to make records. Now when I worked for Clive, he’s kind of the guru of our industry, who’s now 90-years-old and still is the giant that he was then, I learned what the word “show business” is. As a performer, your whole focus is on the word “show,” but when you’re behind the desk, you realize the word “business” is very much in order. It’s not just the stage, the stardom, the lights, the hits. It’s a business as well, and as long as there is a profit margin, you really [have to pay] attention to what’s being spent, not too differently from what you do with your own household and keeping a budget. But most performers, including myself, don’t think about the business aspect. It taught me that the business aspect may be even more important than the “show” aspect of the word “show business.”

In addition to all the highs, your autobiography, “Halfway To Paradise,” was very candid about the lows as well. What was it like putting your whole life story together?

Orlando: Well, that was only part one (laughs). There’s still a lot to do. I’ll tell you what, I wrote that book for my children. I wanted my kids to know everything that happened to me, to know the truth about me, the good, the bad and the ugly, so there’s no excuses for whatever we do in this life. We take responsibility for whatever we do. It’s not anybody’s else fault. If there’s a fault, it’s your own fault. No blame games. It’s all about how we handle ourselves. At that [lower] period of time, there was [actor, comedian and close friend] Freddie Prinze’s death. There were all kinds of rumors and I wanted them to know exactly where I fell. I wanted them to know exactly from Dad’s mouth, not from some writer’s mouth or some guy on television’s mouth, but my own heart and take responsibility…Is there anybody that goes a lifetime that doesn’t have a bad day, a disappointment, or divorce, or a problem with finances, or some kind of person you love passes away? It’s all part of the journey we’re in. The most important thing in that journey is to keep your head looking up and know that the Lord loves you. We’re all sinners. We all make mistakes. Once you straighten it out, you clean it up, you feel good, you move on… It was really my way of saying here, “This is what your dad is about. This is what happened and it’s coming from me, not anybody else”…and that’s why I wrote that book.

Do you have any specific plans for future projects, written, recording or otherwise?

Orlando: Every time I do a show and I tell a story, people say to me, “Wow, that story was awesome. You should write a book about all the stuff that you’ve experienced.” I try it out on stage once in a while, like I tell my story about when I first met [Frank] Sinatra and how he welcomed me to show business, how gracious he was to me, and on and on.

I never saw high school. I only went to the eighth grade and here I am working for nine presidents in the East Room of the White House, one of them becoming very close friends to the family, which was the President Ford era. We became literal family friends. These stories I have are really unbelievable. My time with Elvis in Vegas. My time with the presidents at the White House. I mean how do you have a kid who never sees high school and tasted the foods of 33 different cultures and not end up with some beautiful stories?

So I’m writing a book now called “The Storyteller” and I’m going to tell the stories. Hopefully, people will enjoy them based on a journey that’s almost fantasia in a way. You’d never believe what I’ve been through and what has happened with me, so my goal is to be able to write it all down, to maybe have people enjoy it and continue working as a writer. I just finished a Broadway show. I’ve just written three scripts for film. I love the creative side of me. I do a radio show, which is number one in New York, on WABC from ten at night to midnight. You can hear me streaming around the world on WABCRadio.com. We’re number seven streaming around the world on that radio show. I’ve had everybody from Clive Davis to Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Adam Sandler and Lionel Richie on the show as guests. This is a whole new broadcasting career for me that I’m enjoying, so there’s a lot to do and talk about!

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Tony Orlando and Wayne Newton perform at Hard Rock Live Northern Indiana on Saturday, May 13. For additional details, visit TonyOrlando.com, WayneNewton.com, and HardRockCasinoNorthernIndiana.com.