{"id":791687,"date":"2019-01-02T17:54:31","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T00:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=774307"},"modified":"2019-01-02T17:54:31","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T00:54:31","slug":"daryl-dragon-captain-and-tennilles-captain-dead-at-76","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/daryl-dragon-captain-and-tennilles-captain-dead-at-76\/","title":{"rendered":"Daryl Dragon, Captain and Tennille\u2019s Captain, Dead at 76"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/daryl-dragon-obit-captain-and-tenille.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Daryl Dragon, the keyboard-playing \u201cCaptain\u201d of Seventies hitmakers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/captain-and-tennille\/\" id=\"auto-tag_captain-and-tennille\" data-tag=\"captain-and-tennille\">Captain and Tennille<\/a>, died at a hospice in Prescott, Arizona on Wednesday. <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.apnews.com\/0117cd4218ca4df0808e9352c79f2506?fbclid=IwAR2ZiigWDSxC5zj6y84dv9cJRMTVZ34RebEArULKSeCpgmFc1iQKUzPs5LY\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Associated Press<\/a><\/em> reports the cause of death as renal failure. He was 76.<\/p>\n<p>As Captain and Tennille, Dragon and his then-wife Toni Tennille scored a string of catchy, easy-rolling hits in the mid-Seventies, including the Grammy-winning, Number One hit \u201cLove Will Keep Us Together,\u201d \u201cThe Way I Want to Touch You,\u201d \u201cLonely Night (Angel Face)\u201d and \u201cMuskrat Love.\u201d Dragon was known for wearing a captain\u2019s hat and playing multilevel keyboards, as Tennille sang the hits and played her own keyboards. All but two of the albums they released in the Seventies were certified gold or platinum.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_QNEf9oGw8o?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly,\u201d Tennille said in a statement. \u201cI was at my most creative in my life when I was with him.\u201d She was by his side at the time of his death.<\/p>\n<p>Dragon was born on August 27th, 1942 in Los Angeles, the son of classical composer and conductor Carmen Dragon and singer Eloise Dragon. With music in his blood, he went on to learn the piano, organ, vibes, synthesizer and bass. Beginning in the late Sixties, he toured with the Beach Boys as the group\u2019s keyboard player; it was that group\u2019s Mike Love who gave him the nickname the Captain.<\/p>\n<p>He met Tennille when he joined the house band of a rock musical Tenille had co-written, <em>Mother Earth<\/em>, as part of L.A.\u2019s South Coast Repertory Theater. After it closed, he hired her to play keyboards with the Beach Boys alongside him.<\/p>\n<p>In 1974, they produced and paid for their own single, the slow-building \u201cThe Way I Want to Touch You,\u201d which was a regional hit. They followed it with \u201cLove Will Keep Us Together\u201d the next year. The song became a runaway hit and won them the record of the year Grammy and sold more than 2.5 million copies. They married on November 11th, 1975. Their hits dominated the Top 10 for much of the mid-Seventies, and they closed out the decade with the light-rock torch song \u201cDo That to Me One More Time,\u201d another Number One hit. At their peak, they hosted their own primetime show on ABC, but the hits fizzled out in the 1980s. They released their last album, <em>The Secret of Christmas<\/em>, in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>The couple moved to Nevada, and Dragon continued to produce albums and work on film scores. They continued to perform together intermittently in the years that followed, but Tennille filed for divorce in 2014. At the time, her filing referenced health insurance coverage and previously, in 2010, she\u2019d written that Dragon was living with a Parkinsonian neurological condition that caused harsh tremors, preventing him from playing the keyboards. They remained on good terms after the divorce, and she later moved to Arizona to care for him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA great musician, keyboard player and friend for over 40 years,\u201d musician Neil Sedaka <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/neilsedaka\/status\/1080603656507002886\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">wrote on Twitter<\/a>. \u201cHe took \u2018Love Will Keep Us Together,\u2019 made it his own with the magic of his playing and her incredible voice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Captain and Tennille \u2013 \u201cDo That to Me One More Time\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ry4ngf766N0?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Captain and Tennille \u2013 \u201cMuskrat Love\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xBYV_7a0FQs?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Captain and Tennille \u2013 \u201cThe Way I Want to Touch You\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jbs66c4bS40?version=3&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/daryl-dragon-captain-tennille-dead-774307\/\" target=\"_blank\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daryl Dragon, the keyboard-playing \u201cCaptain\u201d of Seventies hitmakers Captain and Tennille, died at a hospice in Prescott, Arizona on Wednesday. Associated Press reports the cause of death as renal failure. He was 76. As Captain and Tennille, Dragon and his then-wife Toni Tennille scored a string of catchy, easy-rolling hits in the mid-Seventies, including the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-791687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 22:56:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}