LOS ANGELES — It wasn’t love but inertia that kept them together. That’s the essence of “Toni Tennille: A Memoir,” which details the relationship of Daryl “the Captain” Dragon and Toni Tennille, better known as 1970s pop-music duo the Captain & Tennille.
They had a top-40 pop-chart run from 1975 to 1980 with hits including “Love Will Keep Us Together” and “Do That to Me One More Time.” The run included a Grammy, a TV series, millions of album sales and a fan club. Yet Tennille said their marriage, which lasted from 1975 to 2013, was a flop.
“I’ve never felt loved by him,” Tennille, now 75, said in a phone interview from her home near Orlando, Fla. “He just did not seem to be able to do that.”
Dragon declined a request for an interview.
The couple met in 1972 near the end of the run of an ecological stage musical that Tennille had written. Dragon, who was called Captain of the Keyboards by the Beach Boys, was hired for its band.
“I loved him madly at the very beginning,” she said. “He was this one thing. But the truth was, he was this other thing that I would find out I would never, ever be able to change.”
Tennille said Dragon’s behavior became increasingly eccentric, which slowly wore her down. He began to prefer the isolation of his bedroom, she said, and after he developed tremors, she transitioned into his full-time caretaker, though she said he could have taken care of himself at that time.
Why did she stay?
“I didn’t want to let the fans down,” she said.
Tennille filed for divorce in January 2014. She said the split was amicable. The couple, who co-own a music publishing company, and talk weekly, she said.
Dragon, 73, lives in Prescott, Ariz., where he’s doing OK physically and is getting full-time care at home, Tennille said.
“He has nothing that’s life-threatening. He’s probably going to outlive all of us. But it’s sad to me when I think of what Daryl could have been, what more he could have contributed.”
