TONY ORLANDO PRESENTS RANDY EDELMAN

A Reunion Fifty Years in the Making Brings the Bellmore to Its Feet

There has rarely been an evening carrying as much sentiment and shared history as this one. Two of the biggest icons of their era, Tony Orlando and Randy Edelman, reunited on stage after more than fifty years apart. Their careers first intertwined in the early 1970s, when Orlando, then a young executive at April-Blackwood Music, hired Edelman as a staff songwriter before Edelman had written a single song. From that unlikely beginning, both men went on to build careers that would help define American popular music and film. Tonight, live on stage at the Bellmore Movies & The Showplace, they were reunited at last.

Orlando introduced Edelman with warmth and evident emotion, and took a moment to speak of Edelman’s wife, the celebrated singer-songwriter and Grammy winner Jackie DeShannon. Edelman’s response to the introduction was heartfelt in kind, and when his performance opened with “Everything Is Possible,” it felt as though every worry in the room had lifted.

The audience responded warmly to “Weekend in New England” as Edelman shared the story of how he cae to write it for Barry Manilow. As the evening progressed, his voice only grew stronger, and he played with total confidence through a run of hits that have been recorded by artists including Dionne Warwick, The Carpenters, and Olivia Newton-John, among them “Concrete and Clay,” “Uptown, Uptempo Woman,” and “The Woman on My Arm.”

Edelman delighted the audience further with excerpts from his celebrated film scores, including Gettysburg, The Last of the Mohicans, My Cousin Vinny, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, and Dragonheart — the music that has scored the films so many in the room grew up watching.

When the final note faded, three standing ovations followed. Orlando returned to the stage for a spontaneous, good-humored sing-along with Edelman, and the two collaborated together on a song. Following the performance, both men were honored with awards presented by ambassadors Dr. Monica Sanchez and Gloria Cressler — and then the celebration began.

This has never happened before, and it will not happen again. Fifty years in the making, one night in Bellmore — and a reunion no one in the room will forget.

Photo Credit Charles Wills