The Captain and Tennille

We...appear to have never had a thread on them! There was a sort of thread comparing them to Joy Division but not a stand alone.

Prompted because of a comparison to another Manchester artist, by her niece. This is flat out amazing. Read part one, linked at the top, first:

http://www.tonitennille.net/blog/2016/1/28/frankly-ms-tennilleintroducing-my-aunt-to-morrissey-part-two

i just came to post that link. amazing indeed.

Appropriate timing given that one of the biggest radio hits of the past few months uses a C&T melody! R City/Adam Levine's "Locked Away" and "Do That to Me One More Time."

"except for that part about the double-decker bus crashing"

it's the only thing i know of theirs but love will keep us together is an amazingly well-written song

^ Written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield

Dragon's great on the beach boys/Dennis wilson

Had that song in my head this very morning while walking to the bus xpost

I kind of love that Tenille plays the groupie on The Wall album ("Are all these your guitars?...Oh wow, look at this tub?").

xpost neil sedaka keeps sneaking in there writing songs i like

I kind of love that Tenille plays the groupie on The Wall album

According to Wikipedia, it's a Canadian actress named Trudy Young.

That Information Does Not Rule.

Captain and Tenielle's Wikipedia supports the Pink Floyd story:

In the liner notes of the Captain & Tennille anthology Ultimate Collection: The Complete Greatest Hits, Tennille explains how her work on Pink Floyd's album gained her at least one new fan:

I went to see the Pink Floyd concert at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles. There was a 15-year-old boy sitting in front of me who recognized me. He turned around and snottily said, 'What are YOU doing here?' So I told him I sang on the album. He ran off to find a friend who had brought the LP to the show, and looked at the back to see if my name was really on there. A few minutes later, he came back and apologetically said, 'Can I have your autograph?'

— Tennille, Ultimate Collection: The Complete Greatest Hits

anyway everything about this YouTube here is amazing, thread otm, it's kinda weird that the retro tide & pop love didn't bring Captain & Teneille (and Neil Sedaka) with it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgqurVab0Tk

Quickly skimmed Billboard Top 100 for '75, and also songs I keep on my hard drive from that year, and if I'd have been putting together a year-end list myself, "Love Will Keep Us Together" would definitely have been in my Top 10. (It was #1 on the Billboard list.) Wouldn't take it ahead of the Carpenters' best songs, but light years ahead of Donny & Marie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1975

Neil Sedaka was suddenly tearing it up in '75. First a #1 with "Laughter in the Rain," then the Captain & Tennille's #1, then another #1 of his own with "Bad Blood," then his slowed-down re-recording of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" went top 10.

He was allegedly kicked off a tour with the Carpenters that year because as opening act he seemed to be getting more popular then they were.

This is my current favorite by them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLGho8jUbbQ

In 1980 Ian Curtis of the band Joy Division wrote the song "Love Will Tear Us Apart" in response (to "Love Will Keep Us Together")

I never knew this!

Despite the unfortunate circumstances, his feelings for his ex-wife remain strong.

“But I still love Toni,” he admitted. “The divorce was Toni’s idea and I don’t understand it. I was never unfaithful to her. I always thought her and I were like ravens – monogamous for life.”

“I can’t figure it out.”

Just finished Toni Tennille's new memoir and boy, the Captain is a much odder person than I ever imagined. You'll be wondering not why she divorced him, but why she didn't do it sooner, like 30 years ago. Although she doesn't put it in these terms, Daryl Dragon clearly has something akin to Asperger Syndrome, and possibly suffers from some mild form of schizophrenia. On the plus side he seems physically OK today, after decades of eating stringent health food diets.

The book's a snappy read that I can recommend. There's a bit of an odd gap in the narrative when 1964 or so suddenly turns into 1969, and she mangles the chronology of the C&T albums in the '70s, but basically it all has the ring of truth.

Didn't realize she was already 35 when they hit with "Love Will Keep Us Together" or that she'd been married to a different musician for 10 years prior to the Captain.

can we have some examples of Captain oddities

Keyboardist for The Beach Boys in the early 1970s; was given the nickname "Captain Keyboard" by singer Mike Love, and has been known ever since as the Captain.

Well that might explain a few things.

x-post

Refused to take off his hat in public ever, which meant the two of them were barred entrance to the Sistine Chapel when on vacation.

Never said "I love you" to or was physically affectionate toward his wife.

Made himself and Tennille eat nothing but grapefruit for the duration of a three-week hotel residency, which nearly caused her to faint.

Regularly attended lectures of a health food guru who in the same lectures spouted eugenics-based racial fantasies about advanced clear-colored people (...though the Captain himself is not racist, Tennille hastens to add).

"Experienced" many phantom health problems, such as something called Extended Left Arm Syndrome.

When their finances were a bit shaky, announced he wanted to buy a $10,000 generator because he feared the government was stealing their electricity. Their ensuing argument about this led immediately to Tennille filing for divorce.

thread delivers

When the Clear People finally come, Ms. Tennille is going to wish she had gone in on that electricity generator instead of trying to kowtow to the papists.

Extended Left Arm Syndrome

this is amazing

are Clear People transparent?

Yes, you can see right through them. "Over time people would evolve to become whiter and whiter until they reached the clear point," as Tennille describes it.

But there's also the Lemurians, descendants of people from the ancient continent of Lemuria, who are of the clear race. They still live in caves and tunnels inside Mount Shasta in northern California.

And the Captain has sailed on.

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Daryl-Dragon-of-Captain-and-Tennille-dead-toni-celebrity-503813061.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_LABrand

RIP, you did some...odd things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QR5bjcuzOM

before my time but still, RIP.

well maybe not before my time but they were big way before my time. to clarify.

odd things is right, apparently he was a major player on dogbowl's "cyclops nuclear submarine captain" record.

I didn't realize I remembered the song until two days ago, but it's a little disconcerting that I can't get "The Way I Want to Touch You" out of my head, after listening to samples of their greatest hits record. Apparently this was originally released as an independent single in 1974; how come it isn't in the history books as a landmark for US independent rock, along with "Little Johnny Jewel" and "Piss Factory"?