R.I.P.: Daryl Dragon, of Captain & Tennille Fame

Daryl Dragon, the “Captain” half of the pop duo the Captain and Tennille, whose string of soft-rock hits in the 1970s included “Love Will Keep Us Together” and “Muskrat Love,” died on Wednesday in Prescott, Ariz.

He was 76, reports The NYTimes.

His former wife and singing partner, Toni Tennille, announced his death through a publicist, who said the cause was renal failure.

The Captain and Tennille, whose specialty was romantic ballads featuring Ms. Tennille’s silky voice, reached the Top 10 seven times from 1975 to 1979.

“He was a brilliant musician with many friends who loved him greatly,” Ms. Tennille said in a statement. “I was at my most creative in my life when I was with him.”

Mr. Dragon’s stage name came from his days as a backup musician with the Beach Boys in the 1960s and early ’70s, when he often wore a captain’s hat onstage. Mike Love, one of the group’s leaders, would introduce him to audiences as the “captain of the keyboards.”

Daryl Dragon was born on Aug. 27, 1942, in Los Angeles. His father, Carmen, was a composer and conductor, and his mother, Eloise (Rawitzer) Dragon, was a soprano who sang on radio programs.

He played in several bands in the 1960s before signing on with the Beach Boys. He met Ms. Tennille in 1971, when he was brought in to play keyboards for the San Francisco run of an ecology-themed musical, “Mother Earth,” which she had co-written and in which she was performing with South Coast Repertory, a theater company from Orange County, Calif. He in turn brought her onto a Beach Boys tour as a backup singer and pianist.


The two began performing together in nightclubs, and after self-financing a demo, they landed a record contract. Their cover of “Love Will Keep Us Together,” a song that Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield wrote and that Mr. Sedaka recorded in 1973, became a worldwide hit in 1975, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart and winning the Grammy Award for record of the year.

The duo had a run of easy listening hits in the 1970s, notably the chart-topping “Love Will Keep Us Together.” Their other songs included “Muskrat Love,” “Shop Around” and “Do That to Me One More Time.”

The couple separated in 2013 and divorced the following year. But they remained close, according to Boll, and Tennille even moved to Arizona to help care for Dragon when his health declined.