“Love Will Keep Us Together” (The Captain and Tennille)

Today’s classic song of the day is the smash hit “Love Will Keep Us Together” by the Captain and Tennille. This one, released in April of 1975, went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the Billboard Easy Listening Chart, and both the Australian and Canadian charts. It was a massive hit, staying at #1 for four consecutive weeks, earning the #1 spot for the entire year, and winning the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1976. You can’t get much better than that.

“Love Will Keep Us Together” was the first hit for the Daryl Dragon (the Captain) and his then-wife Toni Tennille. Many other hits would follow but this was the one that rocketed them from backing-musician obscurity to stardom. (Prior to attaining Captain rank, Mr. Dragon played keyboards for the Beach Boys, where his habit of wearing a captain’s hat earned him his nickname.)

This record also marked the comeback of songwriter/performer Neil Sedaka. Mr. Sedaka was a big deal back in the ’60s but had largely faded from the scene by the turn of the decade; his last previous hit was “Workin’ On a Groovy” thing, which was recorded by the 5th Dimension in 1969. The success of “Love Will Keep Us Together” (and the backing vocalists singing “Sedaka is back!” during the out chorus) signaled a reversal of fortune for Mr. Sedaka and a resurgence as both a songwriter and a performer during the mid-70s.

“Love Will Keep Us Together” was one of the last hits written by Sedaka with his longtime partner and lyricist Howard Greenfield. The two of them had a ton of hits in the early 1960s, but moving into the 1970s Sedaka partnered instead with lyricist Phil Cody; together they pinned hits like “Solitaire” (a hit for the Carpenters), “Laughter in the Rain,” “Bad Blood,” “The Immigrant,” and “Lonely Night (Angel Face),” also for the Captain and Tennille.

This track was also the last #1 hit played on by legendary drummer Hal Blaine—although Hal wasn’t aware of it until later. Apparently Hal was called in to play drums on a demo by this guy that fellow Wrecking Crew musician Don Randi was friends with. The guy was Daryl Dragon and the demo didn’t have any vocals on it at the time, just “a riff line turned into three minutes,” as Hal later described. The Captain finished up the track, added Toni’s vocals, and the thing became a #1 hit. You can tell it’s Hal drumming, as always, and that probably didn’t hurt the song one little bit.

Hal tells the story of being congratulated by a fan on having the #1 record in the country, asking “What is it?,” being informed it was from the Captain and Tennille, and responding “Who the hell are the Captain and Tennille?” A little later, Hal got a telegram from A&M Records letting him know he’d be getting a gold record for the song, and Hal fired back “WHO THE HELL ARE THE CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE?” Don Randi finally talked to Hal and mentioned that they had the number-one record in the country, from the Captain & Tennille, and Hal screamed out, “WHO ARE THEY?” Don reminded Hal about that Daryl Dragon demo thing they worked on the year before, and Hal finally remembered it, barely. Hal eventually heard the song on the radio, and said “I remembered, but it’s vague.” Hey, at least he was honest about it.

I think the rest of us remember the song a bit better than Hal did. It’s a good song, nothing world changing, but a decent tune with a good melody, a good vocal performance by Toni Tennille, decent production, and a classic drum track from Hal Blaine. That’s all it takes to make a #1 hit!

Mr. Dragon and Ms. Tennille went on to much success. They had a total of nine Top 40 hits, seven of them in the Top Ten: “The Way I Want to Touch You” (#4 in 1975), “Lonely Night (Angel Face)” (#3 in 1976), “Shop Around” (#4 in 1976), the execrable but slightly charming “Muskrat Love” (#4 in 1976), “Do That To Me One More Time” (#1 in 1978), “You’ve Never Done It Like That” (#10 in 1978), and the one that started it all, “Love Will Keep Us Together.” They even got their own self-titled TV variety show that ran on the ABC network during the 1976-1977 season.

The Captain and Tennille continued to perform as a duo through the mid-2000s. During that time, through the 1980s and 1990s, Toni Tennille had a side gig performing standards from the Great American Songbook and released several solo albums in that vein. She even starred in a touring version of the hit Broadway play, Victor, Victoria.

Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille stayed together as a couple for 39 years but filed for divorce in 2014. They remained close, however, until Mr. Dragon’s death from complications of kidney failure in 2019; he’d been suffering from a neurological condition for some time that caused his hands to tremble so much he could no longer play the keyboards. He was 76 years old and Toni Tennille was at his side when he died.