Watch Neil Sedaka Join the Captain & Tennille on Playful Version of His ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’

Neil Sedaka performing with the Captain & Tennille on The Midnight Special, on Nov. 14, 1975.

Music fans of a certain age recall the 1970s-era late night TV series, The Midnight Special, with a good deal of reverence, and well they should! The program ran on NBC for 450 episodes from February 2, 1973, until May 1, 1981.

The series began when TV producer Burt Sugarman pitched the network on a Friday night musical variety show that would follow the high-rated The Tonight Show at 1 a.m. and retain some of its audience. When the network didn’t bite, Sugarman bought the airtime, found a sponsor (Chevrolet) and on August 19, 1972, premiered the 90-minute program, on which the acts played live, as a special. Its solid ratings led NBC to greenlight the series.

Individual performance clips from the series continue to be restored and released on the show’s YouTube channel. Best Classic Bands profiles some of them from time to time. [Check out our story on a 1973 Genesis appearance with Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins that will blow your mind.]

Daryl Frank Dragon, the “Captain” of the husband-and-wife duo the Captain & Tennille, was born in Los Angeles on Aug. 27, 1942. His father, Carmen Dragon, was a respected conductor, arranger and composer. Daryl’s “Captain” nickname was given to him by the Beach Boys’ Mike Love during Dragon’s stint as a keyboardist for the band (1967-72). Dragon was rarely seen publicly without his captain’s cap henceforth.

Toni Tennille was a Southern gal, born on May 8, 1940, and raised in Montgomery, Ala. When she was in her late teens, her family moved to California, and she married her first husband in 1962, at age 22.

Dragon met his wife-to-be in 1971 during auditions for the show, and subsequently introduced her to the Beach Boys for whom she also played keyboards for a brief time. They formed Captain & Tennille in 1973 and signed with A&M Records. The couple wed in 1974 and “Love Will Keep Us Together,” written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, became their first hit, reaching #1 on June 21, 1975, where it remained for four weeks, and ultimately won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The duo earned seven Top 10 singles but, surprisingly, never had another after “Do That To Me One More Time” reached #1 in 1980.

Sedaka, whose career began as a teen pop sensation, evolved to that of a gifted songwriter of some 500 tunes—many while working at the acclaimed Brill Building in New York City—as a hitmaker in the ’60s, as well as a surprising comeback king a decade later with several big singles in the ’70s.

On Nov. 14, 1975, Sedaka joined the Captain & Tennille on The Midnight Special for—as the songwriting legend notes—”the first time the writer, producer and singer of this record have been together.” Toni replies, “We’ve never done this together, you and I.” Go figure!

The “Captain” died Jan. 2, 2019, at age 76. Sedaka passed at 86 on Feb. 27, 2026.

A Captain & Tennille hits collection is available here. Sedaka’s recordings are available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.