Captain & Tennille (Singers)
 
Daryl Dragon (Captain) & Toni Tennille 1
Updated: 9/14/2007

Name: Daryl Dragon (Captain) & Toni Tennille

Born: Captain (Daryl Dragon) - August 27, 1942, Los Angeles, California
Toni Tennille - May 8, 1940, Montgomery, Alabama

Claim To Fame: The singing duo will always be known for their mega-pop hit, "Love Will Keep Us Together."

Family Life: Captain and Toni have been married since 1975... I guess love has kept them together!

Prior to marrying Daryl, Toni was married before in 1962 but I don't know how long the marriage ended. She was married to Kenneth Shearer.

Daryl's father was the legendary Los Angeles Symphony conductor, Carmen Dragon. Daryl's younger brother, Dennis Dragon, was the founder of the popular 1980s band, the Surf Punks.

Info: Toni married Daryl at her parents' urging, when they were about to go on tour together and her parents worried about their public image. ("Living together" was still largely frowned upon in America during the early 1970s.) Neither Toni nor Daryl took the marriage seriously at the time, but came to value it more and more as the years went by.

Daryl Dragon (Captain) & Toni Tennille 2
Trivia: Keyboardist for The Beach Boys in the early 1970s, Daryl was given the nickname "Captain Keyboard" by singer Mike Love, and has been known ever since as the Captain.

Daryl's father is legendary composer Carmen Dragon.

Toni sang background vocals on Pink Floyd "The Wall".

Toni's was also a backup singer for The Beach Boys in the early 1970s, making her arguably the first "Beach Girl".

They met in 1971 in San Francisco, when Toni was staging a musical she had written called Mother Earth at the Marines Memorial Theatre. Toni hired Daryl as a musician for the production after which, in turn, he helped Toni get a job with The Beach Boys.

Toni performed backup on a number of Elton John albums most notably (and prominently) on the classic "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me". She also appeared as a backup vocalist on tracks by Art Garfunkel.

The singing duo have been referenced several times on the popular show The Simpsons. In "Mommie Beerest", Homer and Marge appear dressed as Captain and Tennille, respectively. Homer, in a captain costume, plays the piano to a lyrically different version of "Love Will Keep Us Together". In "Simpson Tide", Homer is assigned to a nuclear submarine under the command of "Captain Tennille". Also, in "Trash of the Titans", the Simpsons celebrate the made-up holiday of "Love Day" by decorating their front yard with a mechanized string quartet (made to look like the Care Bears) that played "Love Will Keep Us Together".

Daryl Dragon (Captain) & Toni Tennille 3
Where Are They Now: Throughout the '90s, they continued to perform various concert dates at venues around the world, frequently at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.

At the same time throughout the 1980s and '90s, Toni enjoyed a second career as a big band and pop standards singer, not unlike pop colleague Linda Ronstadt. She released several albums and performs with orchestras throughout the country.

She also enjoyed a year as the star of the Broadway tour of 'Victor/Victoria'. At the end of that project, she and Daryl were to have embarked on a twenty-fifth anniversary tour; however, the stresses of the road proved too demanding and the Captain & Tennille instead put a hold on their career as a performing duo.

In November 2003, Tennille performed a benefit concert for the Reno, Nevada Chamber Orchestra, where her surprise guest was none other than Daryl Dragon. This was the first time they had publicly performed as Captain & Tennille in many years. As a result, their first live recording, 'An Intimate Evening' with Toni Tennille, was released to commemorate the event.

2005 marked a resurgence for Captain & Tennille when Brant Berry, the vice president of a small Portland, Oregon-based entertainment company, Respond 2 Entertainment (R2), an avowed fan, signed an agreement with Dragon & Tennille to release projects.

The first, and most anticipated, was the home video release of Captain & Tennille's 1976 variety series, on a three-disc DVD set containing eleven complete episodes with lots of bonus musical tracks.

A new direction for the Captain & Tennille began in October 2006 with the release of Cartoon Network's animated special Casper's Scare School. Not only did the duo record two songs for the movie, they voiced the dialogue for the characters who sang the songs. Tennille portrayed Aunt Belle and Dragon was Uncle Murray, who together formed a two-head-on-one-body being known as the Ankle. The two songs they performed, "Why Does Love Make Me Feel So Good" and "World Without Fear", were written by Magnus Fiennes, younger brother of popular motion-picture stars Ralph and Joseph Fiennes.

The two recently moved to Prescott, Arizona and have been busy getting acclimated to the quiet and beautiful surroundings as well as building their new home. They broke ground in May 2007.

In October the two will be flying to New York to appear at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center in a tribute to Neil Sedaka's Fifty Years of Songwriting.

Write To Daryl Dragon (Captain) & Toni Tennille:

tonifans@aol.com

Official Website: www.captainandtennille.net

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