Remember When the Captain & Tennille Jammed With Glen Campbell?
The Captain & Tennille were a pop music phenomenon in the 1970s, but did you know that they once jammed with country legend Glen Campbell?
The iconic pop duo consisting of Daryl "The Captain" Dragon and Toni Tennille scored massive success on the pop charts beginning in 1975, when they took Neil Sedaka's "Love Will Keep Us Together" to No. 1.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Dragon grew up in a musical family; his father was an Academy Award-winning composer, while his mother was a singer who worked with Bing Crosby and many other singing stars of that era.
Dragon was also a classically trained pianist, and he landed a gig playing keyboards for the Beach Boys from 1967-1972. Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love coined the nickname "The Captain" as a result of Dragon's preference for wearing a captain's hat onstage.
Dragon met singer Toni Tennille in 1971, when she hired him to play keys in a musical titled Mother Earth. He helped her land a gig playing piano on the road with the Beach Boys, and they formed a relationship that was both personal and professional, beginning a romance and also playing side gigs as a duo under the name the Captain & Tennille.
They landed a record deal with A&M Records in 1974 and scored a No. 1 hit in 1975 with their signature it, "Love Will Keep Us Together," which went on to win a Grammy for Record of the Year. They landed a string of additional hits that included "The Way I Want to Touch You," "Shop Around," "Muskrat Love" and "Do That to Me One More Time," and such was their popularity that they even hosted a television variety show on ABC from 1976-1977.
The Captain & Tennille featured a number of guests from across the musical spectrum, including Glen Campbell, a fellow Beach Boys alum who was at that time one of the biggest stars in country music. In the video above, Campbell jams with the Captain & Tennille on a Toni Tennille-penned country song titled "Feel Like a Man," uncovered by Country Music Nation.
Married in 1975, the Captain & Tennille were together personally and professionally until 2014, when Tennille filed for divorce. They remained close friends, and Tennille was at Dragon's side when he died on Wednesday (Jan. 2) from renal failure at the age of 76.
"He was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly," Tennille says in a statement. "I was at my most creative in my life, when I was with him."
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