The Mysterious Captain of Captain And Tennille: Who Was He?

By | January 3, 2019


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Left: Captain & Tennille on the cover of their 1980 album 'Keeping Our Love Warm.' Right: Daryl Dragon, a.k.a. Captain, on 25th August 1975. Source: IMDB; Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns

You didn't need to know (or like) their music to dope out who was who in the '70s pop phenom Captain & Tennille, whose "Love Will Keep Us Together" was the top hit of 1975. Tennille was the singer, a woman, which was clear because Captain was a guy wearing a ship captain's hat and, often, a shirt that said CAPTAIN. But who was Captain? His real name was Daryl Dragon, and his death on January 2, 2019, had fans everywhere feeling both nostalgic and melancholy. Well, perhaps melancholy isn't the right word, considering the relentless peppiness of the duo's signature tune, "Love Will Keep Us Together."

Captain Was Born Into A Musical Family, Not A Nautical One

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Conductor Carmen Dragon. Source: Wikimedia Commons/public domain

Daryl Dragon -- yes, that's a real name -- was born August 27, 1942, the son of Carmen Dragon, a noted conductor and composer. Carmen wrote scores for movies, winning an Oscar for his score for the 1944 musical Cover Girl. He conducted orchestras for radio shows and hosted a long-running classical music show on the Armed Forces Radio Network. One of Carmen's sons, Dennis Dragon, was a successful session drummer, working with the Beach Boys and the Byrds in the late '60s and early '70s, and co-founding the Surf Punks in 1976. A daughter, Carmen E. Dragon, was a classical harpist. And another son was -- or became -- the Captain.