Tony’s Big O in Manila

He has just turned 70 last April, but Tony Orlando still bellows and bumps like the Dionysus figure of his youth, his luxuriant mane heavily streaked with silver now, but his moustache still black as the god of ecstasy’s smoldering eyes. Michael Anthony Orlando Cassavitis, lured Manila with the biggest O his  “Greek-a-rican” (father was Greek, and mother was Puerto Rican) heritage can muster: Optimism.

He draws a smiling face in his O when he signs his name because his whole life breathes optimism, founded on a faith that his grandmother and mother brought him up with. He soared from Hell’s Kitchen of the New York of his youth (the tough Manhattan block in 21st Street between 7th and 8th Avenue which we craned our necks to see from La Guardia Airport in 1990, recalling the West Side Story tenements of another Tony, of the Jets) where he spent summers opening up the fire hydrants to cool off and played stickball in the middle of the street when the factories were closed on Sundays, with sparks flying to tin pan alley, on his wings a hit at the age of 16. His Halfway to Paradise and Bless You topped the charts, and now, 53 years later, he is still leading his band on a Bacchanalian feast of music and mirth as only Tony O can.

Without fanfare, he opened his Manila concert with Tie a Yellow Ribbon, “the song that made us friends,” he claimed. When the Resorts World reverberated with the coda of this signature song, he laughed and said: “Thank God, you are old enough to remember the lyrics!”

He then pointed to the ash blond woman in the keyboard who composed his next number, Candida — Tony Wine, one of the back-up girls when his act was still known in the ’70s as Tony Orlando and Dawn. And this took us back to our high school days in Calumpit Institute when we were glued to the black and white Hitachi television, waiting for then teen heartthrob Sonny Cortez to dish out his version of hopeful anticipation for a life together in a dreamy place with a beloved.

And his third song, Knock Three Times (L. Russel Brown and Irwin Levine’s take on love in the tenements) brought more flood of memories of that bygone days of youth when we wore red checkered skirts stiff with starch and waited for the postman to bring us perfumed cards from our bashful swains, reflecting on the sentimental line “pull in the string with the note that’s attached to my heart” before the famous refrain with knocks and pipes a-beating.

Then he honored the memory of a Filipino who worked with him for 13 years as his band’s conductor, Toti Fuentes — “an amazing musician,” he claimed and titillated the audience with the honky tonk beat of  “Hey has anybody seen my Sweet Gypsy Rose?”

But the tribute from Tony O’s generous heart is also for the living, as he allowed each of the seven members of his band to shine, all of them revelations as they dazzled in their own light, especially: Jimmy, the drummer who jammed with him in beating the daylights out of the metal stool and crooned a mean Stand by Me solo; Kerry, the keyboard musician who did impressions of male and female icons from different genres from country to rock; and Mariano, the harpist who did a tribute mini-concert to Filipino culture with Dahil sa Iyo, Malagueña and Lighter Shade of Pale.

He credited Sammy Davis Jr., sorely missed friend from his Vegas years, as the one who taught him to affirm the talent of his band and explained: “It’s my heart. It’s what I feel. And they see my actions, and they see my lifestyle, and they see how I treat people and how I treat them and they get it. Those who know it need no explanation.”

Tony Wine’s plaintive Carole King number made me nostalgic for my lazy summers sitting by the piano to accompany the friends brought from Manila by my good chum, Lody Mendoza-Flores and we howled without compunction, Will you Still Love me Tomorrow?

Tony O gave every cent’s worth of the tickets costing a fortune as he chronicled his career with songs from the prodigies he signed up for his record company (CBS) from Blood, Sweat and Tears, James Taylor, Barry Manilow and other now big names in the marquee. My husband ascertained he really wanted to go down in Philippine entertainment history as Mr. Showmanship when he did a medley of Beatles hits (Can’t Buy Me Love, Something in the Way She Moves, Obladi-Oblada and Let It Be).

Dionysus, the patron deity of Greek drama, is deemed protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the inscrutable action of the gods. Scholars of comparative mythology identify both Dionysus and Jesus with the dying-and-returning god mythological archetype. Tony O, in his humanitarian advocacy, has served the Fraternity of Eagles for its fundraising for muscular dystrophy, diabetes research and has sung to infinity his anthem adopted by veterans for the Yellow Ribbon Medal of Freedom.

He has counted losses, but cherished more gains and after being in show business nearly half a century, still plays 164 dates on the road every year. For him, the worth of his career is in helping people with health issues have better lives. He must have found favor with God working thus, as he is still in good form and could boast with a wide wide grin, pointing at himself: “Everything still works, I assure you!”

To his Manila audience, he summarized his life of grace: “I’ve had my own TV show (Tony Orlando and Dawn Show, 1974 to 1976), my own Theatre in Missouri, performed for five US presidents, had the chance to work on Broadway twice (Barnum and Smoky Joe’s Café), recently made a movie with Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg. I’ve done everything possible that you can think of. Anything that comes off of those years like that is all part of it, and I look back on it and say what a great journey and I’m continuing that journey.”

When he did his encore, he brought Tie a Yellow Ribbon to a new high, his maenads of seniors sweating out with him a homespun song that once toppled their country’s dictator. Never mind if poverty, corruption and lawlessness still abound in the Philippines. Tony O is offering optimism as his going away gift to Filipinos, as he bowed: “It’s an honor to be with you. Esta contigo mi amor!” We shook his hands twice and prayed this doo-wop Dionysus will live forever.