The album was Love Will Keep Us Together, and not only was the title track pretty good, but I also liked some of the other cuts, as well – like the group’s cover version of The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows, and the Bruce Johnston classic, Disney Girls.
The duo released several other albums in the late 70s (I didn’t buy any of those!), and while it’s relatively easy to poke fun at The Captain & Tennille for a myriad of reasons (not the least of which is the hokey nautical captain’s hat worn by Daryl Dragon – alright, I know he was “the captain”), I really must take issue with Dragon’s choice of an ocarina as the solo instrument on one of the group’s more popular songs, Do That to Me One More Time, which appeared on their 1979 album, Make Your Move. I can’t for the life of me figure out what made him choose that instrument over some others. (An ocarina is a flute-type of instrument that looks sort of like a potato with holes in it.)
Daryl Dragon was, after all, one of the early users of the synthesizer in pop music (not that Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman had anything to worry about), using it in a particularly creative way on the song Muskrat Love. So, why not use a synthesizer for the solo verse in Do That to Me One More Time? (Something other than the sound of two muskrats mating might be nice, however!) Why in the world choose an ocarina? Goodness! An ocarina? The instrument (also known as a “sweet potato” – which should be a pretty good clue as to what a looser instrument it is!) sounds really out-of-place to me, and way “not cool.” How about a guitar? Or a trumpet, even? Almost anything would have been better than the “doot-doot-doot-doot-doot” of an ocarina. I don’t know, as a solo instrument, it just sounds really hokey to me.
Other than that, however, I sort of like the song – even though its title does have a romantic subtlety rivaled only by The Starland Vocal Band’s Afternoon Delight.
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