Daryl and Toni: Love Will Keep Us Together
Here’s your “Do you feel old yet?” moment for today: It was a half-century ago Saturday — June 21, 1975 — when Captain and Tennille’s first and biggest hit song, “Love Will Keep Us Together,” landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
The husband-and-wife duo would go on to release six more Top-10 hits and host a popular TV variety show.
A Pop Music Power Couple
Born in 1942, Daryl Dragon was the son of composer and conductor Carmen Dragon and Eloise, a soprano who performed on radio. Daryl was trained as a classical pianist but found pop music more to his liking.
He began playing keyboards in the backing band for the Beach Boys in 1967. He liked to wear a captain’s hat onstage, so lead singer Mike Love began referring to him as the “Captain of the Keyboards.”
In 1971, Toni Tennille — the co-writer of an ecological-themed musical production, “Mother Earth” — put out a call for a new pianist when her show moved from San Francisco to Southern California. She was 31 at the time, two years older than Dragon.
Dragon landed the gig between Beach Boys tours and then returned the favor by recommending Tennille when the Beach Boys needed a second keyboard player. They both toured with the group in 1972, with Tennille earning a reputation as the one and only “Beach Girl.”
They became a couple and then decided to perform as a duo — at first calling themselves “The Dragons.” They recorded a song Tennille had written about Dragon, “The Way I Want to Touch You,” and sold it out of their camper truck until they attracted a contract from a major label.
Before the release of their first album, Dragon and Tennille ran off to Virginia City, Nevada, and got married in November 1974. “We were living together,” Tennille said. “Everybody thought we were married but we weren’t. Their publicist later told everyone they had been married on Valentine’s Day.
Their first single release for A&M Records was a song Neil Sedaka and lyricist Howard Greenfield had written in 1973. Dragon wanted “I Write the Songs,” written by his Beach Boys pal Bruce Johnston, to be their first single. That song appeared on the first Captain & Tennille album but became a No. 1 hit for Barry Manilow seven months after Dragon and Tennille’s first chart topper.
In 1976, Captain & Tennille hosted their own variety TV show on ABC. The show lasted only one season, despite pulling in respectable ratings. Tennille and Dragon were more interested in recording and touring than in further TV work.
The couple broke up in 2013 and divorced a year later after 39 years of marriage. Tennille wrote in her 2016 memoir that Dragon had intimacy issues. “He was raised quite differently than I was,” she said. “None of this is his fault.”
Dragon died of kidney failure in 2019 at age 76. Tennille was at his side.
“He was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly,” she said in a statement. “I was at my most creative in my life when I was with him.”
Captain & Tennille's Chart History
Their Other Top-10 Hits
The Way I Want To Touch You
1976
This was the first song Captain & Tennille recorded. Tennille wrote it in 1972 when they were on tour with the Beach Boys about Dragon but the two didn’t record it until 1973. They had a limited number of copies pressed and distributed it themselves, which caught the attention of A&M Records, which signed them to a recording contract and re-released it in 1974. The version that hit the Top 10 was the third official release of the song.
Lonely Night (Angel Face)
1976
A year after riding a Neil Sedaka composition to No. 1, Tennille and Dragon recorded another Sedaka tune and again saw it become a huge hit. Sedaka had included this song on his 1975 album and sang it on “Saturday Night Live” when Captain & Tennille released their version as the lead single for their second album. In this song, the singer is laying in bed at night, listening to crickets chirping and pining for the guy who used to call her “Angel Face.”
Shop Around
1976
This song by Smokey Robinson and Motown founder Berry Gordy was a No. 1 hit for the Miracles in 1960 — in fact, it was Motown’s first Top 10-single via the company’s Tamala label. Robinson’s mother had died when he was 10 years old, so he imagined what his mother might tell him, if she were still around, about searching for the perfect girl to marry. Tennille changed the gender in the lyrics so that it would be advice to a daughter, rather than to a son.
Muskrat Love
1976
This song was written in 1972 by country singer Alan Ramsey as “Muskrat Candlelight.” America recorded the song a year later, hitting No. 67 in the Hot 100 before Captain & Tennille’s version came along two years after that. Their single closed with the sounds of muskrats making love, created by Dragon using a synthesizer. In fact, on the 45 rpm vinyl single, the little chattering noises repeat in the end groove until the listener picks up the needle.
You Never Done It Like That
1978
This was yet another song written by Sedaka and Greenfield for Sedaka’s 1977 album “A Song.” The singer expresses surprise at their lover’s sudden change in lovemaking skills and level of passion. “I thought the flame was dead and gone, oh, but you’ve been learnin’,” Tennille sang. “Yeah, you never done it like that. How long has this been goin’ on?” This song would gain new irony 38 years later when Tennille revealed Dragon’s intimacy issues.
Do That To Me One More Time
1979
Captain & Tennille’s second No. 1 hit was written by Tennille, who had also written the duo’s earlier sexually-charged release, “The Way I Want to Touch You.” This song was featured in a 2001 TV commercial for Sprint cellular in which Tennille and Dragon sing it on a football practice field. An assistant is told the coach wants a backup for O’Neil but, because he’s not using Sprint, he mistakenly hears it as “the coach wants the Captain and Tennille.”