The Yacht Rock Book: The Oral History of the Soft, Smooth Sounds of the 70s and 80s

By Greg Prato and Fred Armisen

‘It’s amazing that this style came to be. Can you imagine being a struggling musician back then? It must take an incredible amount of restraint to play that gently.’ —Actor/comedian Fred Armisen, from his foreword to this book

Just what is ‘yacht rock,’ you ask? Perhaps the easiest description is music that would not sound out of place being played while carousing aboard a yacht back in the good old days. But these songs were also some of the top pop gems of the 1970s and '80s. And while some associate yacht rock’s biggest songs with one-hit wonder artists, several of rock’s most renowned artists fall under this category, too including Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, The Doobie Brothers, Toto, and more.

Yacht rock seemed to have become extinct by the early twenty-first century … until a comedic video series, simply titled Yacht Rock, went viral and introduced captain’s hats and blazers to a whole new generation – as well as the emergence of a popular cover band, the Yacht Rock Revue, and of course, Jimmy Fallon’s on-air admiration of all things yacht rock.

Now, yacht rock is one of the most celebrated ‘yesteryear’ styles of pop music, and has resonated with a new generation of musicians (including the Fred Armisen/Bill Hader-led Blue Jean Committee and soul/funk/electronica crossover act Thundercat). But despite all the hoopla, there has never been a book that told the entire story of the genre. Until now. Featuring interviews with many of the heavy hitters of the genre, including John Oates, Kenny Loggins, and Don Felder, The Yacht Rock Book leaves no sail unturned. This is the definitive story of the yacht rock’s creation, rise, chart-smashing success, fall, and stunning rebirth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jawbone Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781911036302

Greg Prato

Greg Prato is a writer and journalist from Long Island, New York, whose writing has appeared in such renowned publications as Rolling Stone, Classic Rock, and Vintage Guitar. He is also the author of several popular books, including Shredders! The Oral History Of Speed Guitar (And More), Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History Of Seattle Rock Music, and The Eric Carr Story. And you may even have heard him on one of his many radio or TV appearances, which include interviews on The Howard Stern Wrap-Up Show, Eddie Trunk Live, and The Ron & Fez Show.

Book preview

A Jawbone ebook

First edition 2018

Published in the UK and the USA by

Jawbone Press

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www.jawbonepress.com

Text copyright © Greg Prato Writer Corp. Volume copyright © 2018 Outline Press Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews where the source should be made clear. For more information contact the publishers.

contents

foreword by fred armisen

intro by greg prato

cast of characters

chapter 1 sunrise

chapter 2 the beach boys’ honorary ‘captain’

chapter 3 kings and queens of the hill

chapter 4 the fantastic four

chapter 5 mvp?

chapter 6 produced by lindsey and stevie

chapter 7 songcraft

chapter 8 session musicians

chapter 9 fashion

chapter 10 party!

chapter 11 crest of the wave

chapter 12 playlist: the 70s

chapter 13 playlist: the 80s

chapter 14 the yacht rock national anthem

chapter 15 nyacht rock

chapter 16 nyacht so fast

chapter 17 album art

chapter 18 sunset

chapter 19 rejuvenation

chapter 20 the piano man

chapter 21 soft rockers or hard rockers?

chapter 22 no doubt, disney

chapter 23 yacht rocker and politician

chapter 24 love did not keep them together

chapter 25 the test of time

chapter 26 yacht rock, soft rock, or …

photographs

endnotes

about the author

foreword

by fred armisen

The term ‘yacht rock’ is new to me. Even though the genre has existed for decades, from what I can see, it may have been named retroactively. I’m fine with that.

Did they call the Silent Era the Silent Era back then? (Also, I might be wrong about when it happened.) I love this kind of music. I think everyone does. Even people who claim to be against folk or soft music.

The best place to see how people feel about music is in a car. If ‘Summer Breeze’ by Seals & Crofts comes on, people just get quiet. It really takes you far away.

It’s amazing that this style came to be. Can you imagine being a struggling musician back then? It must take an incredible amount of restraint to play that gently. The instinct with any electric instrument is to turn the volume up, even a little.

Drums, too. That dead tom-tom sound is bold. Why did they do it? The feeling I get from hearing punk is similar to hearing yacht rock. It has a kind of aggressiveness to it because it’s so delicate. I love hearing electric piano, too.

I recently became friendly with Gerry Beckley from America, and he explained to me that the recordings came out the way they did by doing many takes of a song. I’m grateful for every take. Thank you to all of the people who were a part of making this music, and to any future musicians who will take it further.

Fred Armisen, July 2017

intro

by greg prato

‘Have you seen this new series, Yacht Rock?’ a chum of mine asked circa 2005. ‘No,’ was my crisp reply. But the term stuck with me … just what the heck was yacht rock? As I consider myself fairly well-versed in musical genres and their many sub-genres, I was a bit perplexed. But I put my fact-finding mission on the backburner, and moved on. Fast-forward several years, I was ready to proceed—upon discovering a great cover band by the name of The Yacht Rock Revue.

While I’m by and large not the biggest fan of cover bands, YRR was an exception, as they specialized in tunes that were mostly by one-hit wonders (most but not all—as evidenced by tunes by the likes of The Doobie Brothers, Toto, America, Hall & Oates, etc.) that you would otherwise probably no longer hear performed live. And I finally found out just what the ‘yacht rock’ style was—music that would not sound out of place being played while carousing aboard a yacht back in the good old days. But for me, these were also pop gems that I closely associated with my childhood, that seemed to always be heard playing from the radio that my parents were listening to.

Via the wondrous YouTube, I was also able to go back and view all of the past episodes of the Yacht Rock web series, and I found myself smitten by its low-budget hijinks and witty storylines, and also by the fact that a fellow writer for a website that I have contributed to, All Music Guide, introduced each episode—Mr. Steve Huey (aka ‘Hollywood Steve’).

And it only confirmed the fact that I absolutely loved almost every single bloody song that was considered yacht rock! Especially the stellar production and sounds they achieved, and the exceptional vocal harmonies. The fact that the majority of these artists wrote, sang, and performed their hits was also extremely impressive—especially compared to nowadays, when pop music is a glut of artists that need multiple pro songwriters to lend a hand (not to mention studio tricks for enhancement).

Which got me thinking … why not a book about yacht rock? To my surprise, no one has attempted to make sense of this style of music that was wildly popular throughout the 70s and into the early 80s, and then largely looked down upon for a decade or two, before finding a whole new audience during the early twenty-first century and experiencing a well-deserved resurgence.

After many an interview with band members and experts—mostly exclusive for this book, with a handful of interviews I conducted that were originally published on the Songfacts website (Gerry Beckley, Christopher Cross, Julian Lennon, Dave Mason, David Paich, James Pankow, Boz Scaggs, and Verdine White) and one that previously appeared in another book of mine, No Schlock … Just Rock (Walter Becker)—the story of yacht rock has now been fully documented, in book form!

Sail on,

Greg Prato, October 2017

PS Questions? Comments? Feel free to email me at [e-mail].

cast of characters

WALTER BECKER Steely Dan guitarist, bassist, singer

PETER BECKETT Player singer, guitarist

GERRY BECKLEY America singer, keyboardist, guitarist

DEWEY BUNNELL America singer, guitarist

RICHIE CANNATA Billy Joel saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist

DAVID CLAYTON-THOMAS Blood Sweat & Tears singer

A.J. CROCE Jim Croce’s son; solo artist; songwriter

INGRID CROCE Jim Croce’s widow

CHRISTOPHER CROSS solo artist

LIBERTY DeVITTO Billy Joel drummer

DARYL ‘THE CAPTAIN’ DRAGON Beach Boys keyboardist; Captain & Tennille keyboardist

BURLEIGH DRUMMOND Ambrosia singer, drummer

ROBBIE DUPREE solo artist

WALTER EGAN solo artist

DON FELDER Eagles guitarist, singer

JOHN HALL Orleans singer, guitarist; politician

RUPERT HOLMES solo artist

LANCE HOPPEN Orleans bassist, singer

STEVE ‘HOLLYWOOD STEVE’ HUEY Yacht Rock host; Beyond Yacht Rock podcast co-host

DANNY HUTTON Three Dog Night singer

ANDY KIM solo artist

JULIAN LENNON John Lennon’s son; solo artist

KENNY LOGGINS Loggins & Messina singer, guitarist; solo artist

ELLIOT LURIE Looking Glass singer, guitarist

DAVE MASON solo artist

ROGER McGUINN The Byrds singer, guitarist; solo artist

DON McLEAN solo artist

JIM MESSINA Buffalo Springfield bassist; Poco guitarist; Loggins & Messina singer, guitarist; solo artist

RONN MOSS Player bassist, singer

NICHOLAS NIESPODZIANI Yacht Rock Revue singer

JOHN OATES Hall & Oates singer, guitarist

SHUGGIE OTIS solo artist

DAVID PAICH Toto keyboardist, singer

JAMES PANKOW Chicago trombonist, singer

RICK ROBERTS Flying Burrito Brothers singer, guitarist; Firefall singer, guitarist

GRAHAM RUSSELL Air Supply singer, guitarist

BOZ SCAGGS solo artist

TIMOTHY B. SCHMIT Poco singer, bassist; Eagles singer, bassist;

solo artist

GLENN SHORROCK Little River Band singer

TONI TENNILLE Captain & Tennille singer, keyboardist

VERDINE WHITE Earth Wind & Fire bassist

MATTHEW WILDER solo artist

sunrise

A trip back with the artists that helped trailblaze the styles that would eventually lead to the yacht rock sounds of the 70s.

JOHN OATES [Hall & Oates singer, guitarist] As children, Daryl [Hall] and I had slightly different influences. But yet at the same time, we had a lot of similar ones. When I started out, I started playing guitar at six years old—like, 1954. So really, at the beginning of rock’n’roll. So, of course, I listened to Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis—the really early rock’n’roll. As a child, I was just learning to play a couple of chords on the guitar—I could kind of fumble my way through. And I stuck with that until the early 60s, when the folk revival started.

And then I got really into American traditional music—folk music, Appalachian, bluegrass, delta blues. And I played that all through the early 60s. But at the same time listening to R&B—Curtis Mayfield, Sam & Dave.

Daryl listened to early rock’n’roll as well, but he was more attracted to the vocal side of things, like doo-wop/street corner harmony, gospel music. Then, we both were really huge fans of The Temptations, and that was one of the places where we came together and had similar roots. From there, we started to make our own music, after that.

KENNY LOGGINS [Loggins & Messina singer, guitarist; solo artist] The folk influences for me, early on, it was The Kingston Trio, The Limeliters—that whole thing. And Peter Paul & Mary was the beginning of my folk influences. But then that gave way to Bob Dylan, and the more earthy/rootsy folk singers, that had a lot to do with creating the ‘new wave of folk.’ And Dylan was that last of the folkies; that gave way to The Beatles. So I was probably on a very normal course for a young singer-songwriter of that era.

GLENN SHORROCK [Little River Band singer] The Everly Brothers were the first ones [to introduce Shorrock to vocal harmonies in rock]—they caught my ear. I loved harmony singing and I found out quickly that I could do that pretty easily with a couple of friends, and we formed ourselves into a vocal trio, and we called ourselves The Twilights. Then in 1963, 1964, The Beatles came along, [and they] had also been listening to The Everly Brothers, obviously. And all of a sudden, rock’n’roll was influenced by England—for a long time. All four bands I have been with have been harmony bands, and I still enjoy that.

WALTER EGAN [solo artist] I suppose yacht rock must have grown out of some more melodic version of The Beatles, really, if you want to get back to it. In many ways, I think The Beatles is the source—as far as where music has gone. Because what The Beatles did is they took the early rock’n’roll, and they coalesced it back into its most pure form, and then they started thinking about it and creating more creative ways of expressing ourselves, as our generation began to experience more than just teenage lust. We started growing into thoughtful things, and of course the folk music of the day and Bob Dylan and his songs created this atmosphere of, ‘Let’s make this music into more than just something to dance to.’ I would imagine it would have come out of some of the more pretty things that The Beatles did, and people took it and expanded on it from there.

JOHN HALL [Orleans singer, guitarist; politician] After 1963, everyone who was listening to rock’n’roll music or writing it was listening to The Beatles. Or at least was aware of The Beatles—you couldn’t not be aware of them. And some of the harmonies they used which would involve moving parts inside a triad, or one thing that they lifted from The Everly Brothers was ‘Please Please Me,’ where the melody goes, ‘Last night I said these words to my girl,’ and the harmony goes [sings line again, but the last few words go higher]. It’s a one-note part, but a moving part underneath it. Well, if you go back and listen to The Everly Brothers, ‘Don’t want your love anymore,’¹ and the top part goes [sings same words but higher], it’s the same thing. It’s one part holding a note with the motion underneath against it, and then they wind up—in that case—in a third harmony.

And The Beach Boys influenced everyone—including The Beatles. Brian Wilson was big on moving harmonies against a chord. He was big on suspensions that a lot of young bands at that time … I mean, everybody in jazz knew about suspensions, and classical music. But in rock’n’roll, it took a little while to get from suspending a fourth or a second, to suspending a whole chord against a bass note. But the Beach Boys were doing that.

DARYL ‘THE CAPTAIN’ DRAGON [Beach Boys keyboardist; Captain & Tennille keyboardist] The Beach Boys are one of a kind. ‘Unique,’ you say? Absolutely! They were unique because they emerged almost as a cosmic, spiritual energy field; which, to me is similar to how Captain & Tennille entered the pop music world. Today, the industry calls The Beach Boys’ brand of music ‘yacht rock,’ and back in the 50s, their style of music was labeled ‘beach rock.’

The Beach Boys’ music immediately and virtually took the listener—perhaps living in Kansas, Poland, etc.—to a warm, beautiful girls–swamped beach. The Beach Boys’ music was responsible for the emergence and recognition of some famous surfers, beach bums, surfing films, etc. In other words, this music created an image in your mind. When you hear the name ‘Beach Boys,’ you think of freedom, riding a wave, going to the beach, sunburns, girls, hot cars, as well as a unique, mystical, spiritual awareness.

The originator of the band’s name was Dennis Wilson. The obvious reason Dennis came up with ‘The Beach Boys’ is simple, his beach-oriented credentials consisted of a few basic beach lifestyle traits: one, he knew how to surf on a surfboard, and two, he could handle the complexities of having several different affairs with many different chicks, all on one day.

And let’s not forget ‘the beach dad.’ When the Boys were having their first success in the pop music domain, their father was really behind it, because Murry Wilson was producing Brian, and he recognized and respected Brian’s unique talent. Brian Wilson—to me—is the Mozart of the twentieth century. When you talk about other bands, you can’t even put him next to anyone. He’s a genius all his own. He used to be very paranoid about not being as good as The Beatles … well, he still may not realize it, but he’s better than The Beatles. He’s more unique by his literally, what I call, the initiation of his heaven-inspired, unique ‘harmony laws’ … thus creating an exclusive ‘Brian Wilson harmony’ sound [that became] standard in the pop music field.

When interviewed, The Beach Boys—Brian—would respond by saying that their favorite band was The Four Freshmen, and maybe Chuck Berry. The Four Freshmen is definitely the vocal harmonies-based band that Brian emulates and continues to meld into his music. The soft, soothing style of four male vocalists with Brian’s Beach Boys musical stamp will live forever. Every musical artist can name his/her favorite artist or musical influence. I personally idolize Fats Domino along with other R&B/blues artists, who were based in the New Orleans area.

WALTER EGAN When Pet Sounds came out, it was not rock’n’roll as we knew it. That’s a timeless album that I can listen to today and not think I’m listening to a fifty-year-old album. That kind of music does transcend, and good pop music is as good as anything.

RICK ROBERTS [Flying Burrito Brothers singer, guitarist; Firefall singer, guitarist] I was a huge fan of The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield—which were not country rock, but the folk-rock kind of morphed into country rock. And the first generation of offshoot bands from The Byrds were the Burritos, and from Springfield it was Poco. Actually, I liked Poco better, because they were closer to Springfield than what the Burritos were to the early Byrds sound.

When I got the invitation to join the Burritos, it was kind of a shock, and I really knew nothing about country music. I was kind of replacing … not only going in and taking over for Gram Parsons—they had parted company with him about three months earlier. And Gram is obviously something of a cult figure now.² He has all kinds of tributes to him every year—all over the country. So it was an interesting spot to jump into. And since my own roots and musical tastes were more to that folk rock thing, it was an interesting kind of a joining.

I went into my first Burrito rehearsal thinking that they were going to be backing me on a solo album project that Columbia Records was interested in doing. And they thought I was auditioning to join the band. So, I’m trying to show them my songs, and they’re asking, ‘Do you know She Thinks I Still Care or The Race Is On?’ And I’m going, ‘No, no, no.’ Finally, Chris Hillman turns to me and says, ‘You were the most ill-prepared auditioner I’ve ever seen in my life!’ And I say, ‘Wait … what exactly?’ And we came to understand what our misunderstanding was. And from there, it went very well.

My addition to the band kind of pulled them more toward … it’s not even folk-rock, but the sound of The Byrds and all that stuff. The first album I was on was the third they had done,³ and initially, some critics liked it. Bob Hilburn for the Los Angeles Times wrote a wonderful review. Others were saying, ‘The Burritos lost their soul when they lost Gram Parsons. This new guy is much more pop.’ Then, as it turns out, that kind of sound, the critics have gotten a lot kinder in retrospect, as the sound of the Eagles and America and things like that came into being.

But as far as country rock itself, I meanwhile have gotten to be much more a fan of … not the hardcore country that was around when I was growing up—back in the days of ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E’⁴ and things like that. I didn’t get much use from that. But a lot of those two genres—pop and country—have kind of melded together. Now, there is a vast number of bands that fall in that general musical style. The country rock kind of ‘center of events’—they were doing it in Boulder in the early 70s. A lot of people from LA—not the heavy metal/headbanger rock, but the more melodic rock—had come out this way. And after a while, it transferred from Boulder to Austin. Now, it’s gone right up to Nashville and the vast majority of the country artists are a lot more rock than some of the country rockers were then.

DON FELDER [Eagles guitarist, singer] It’s an honor to be in that kind of company—people the Eagles are associated with in that kind of earlier country rock phenomenon. Although when Bernie Leadon and I first met, Bernie did not own an electric guitar. He was playing five-string banjo and flattop bluegrass guitar—kind of like Flatt & Scruggs.⁵ That was his thing. And I did not own an acoustic guitar. I was into playing Stratocasters and Les Pauls—rock’n’roll. So when we met each other in high school, I went to the store and bought a flattop acoustic guitar, and he bought his first electric guitar. And, really, the first ‘melding’ that I know of—of what I would associate to be country rock—was what Bernie and I started playing in probably about ’63, ’64. It was because he had such a country influence and I had such a rock influence, and the bands that we were in together … it didn’t help but come out that way—with a lot of harmonies.

The Beatles were coming out with harmonies, so the songs we were writing and recording were kind of in that vocal blend—with country flavor because of Bernie and rock flavor because of me. For me, that’s when it started in my life. And then later, when I got to California, it was Crosby Stills & Nash, and Stephen [Stills] and I had been in a band in Gainesville before Bernie. It was sort of the same thing—he was playing acoustic guitar and singing … not folk, but country rock kind of songs. So that early breeding ground for me, Stills, Bernie, Tom Petty—all those guys that kind of came out of that one area—seemed to have had a fairly big influence on what later became country rock.

WALTER EGAN For a long time, Stephen Stills was one of my idols—from Buffalo Springfield on through his solo stuff and of course, Crosby Stills & Nash, and Manassas, which was a great band. And Neil Young. Buffalo Springfield in general had a big influence on me—as did the Byrds. McGuinn is great—and you couldn’t have the Byrds without McGuinn—but I think Gene Clark was really the soul of those early albums. And from their original material, the best of it I think came from him. So I guess he would be one as a songwriter—I’ve looked up to him.

My last idol I would have to say was Gram Parsons. I noticed Gram when Sweetheart Of The Rodeo came out, and as it was one of my favorite bands taking a sudden turn in their musical style. I took a notice, and, ‘Who was this G. Parsons guy?’ So I would search out everything I could find out about Gram in those early days. And then The Flying Burrito Brothers came out with The Gilded Palace Of Sin, and that was very much a momentous album for me.

So, I had this image of Gram Parsons as kind of very cool, very smart, very charismatic—kind of in a place I felt I was going. And then I got to meet him. I was there when he and Emmylou Harris got together for the first time. The first time they sang together was in my kitchen—I was the only person there—as they worked out their harmonies on a few songs. So getting to meet someone who was such an influence on me was a big deal at the time. Later on, I got to drive him around—after a couple years, we had moved to Boston, and Emmylou actually moved with us, in our van. So I drove Gram around during the nadir of his life—I suppose it was coming very close to the end. He was in a very bad place and he was not a very appealing person in my mind. It was a moment of realization that there is an ideal that music and art will present to you, through whichever artist does it. Yet, if you want to be an artist, you have to make a leap of faith on your own, and say, ‘I can do this,’ and try to be your own idol.

I was very disappointed in the dark side that Gram presented to me when I saw him for the last time. It was like, ‘Well, I don’t really want to end up like that, but I really want to make music that affects people in a positive way.’

JIM MESSINA [Buffalo Springfield bassist; Poco guitarist; Loggins & Messina singer, guitarist; solo artist] I left Poco on October 31, 1970, and that was a time where I was at a point in my life where I was kind of finished with country rock, because the music had been too rock for country radio to play, and too country for rock radio to play. It was getting caught in these pigeonholes.

I think once I had finally left Poco and signed a deal with CBS, my feeling was I wanted to take what I had experienced, and call it folk rock, which is what Buffalo Springfield was. I was experiencing—as a producer—music coming from different people. Like, my relationship with Leon Russell, for instance—he and I had produced one thing together, and being an engineer during the days when the Wrecking Crew or the musicians that filled the studios, I saw Leon as someone who really crossed all those barriers. He could play blues, he could play jazz, he could play music that I never heard before. It was so brilliant.

And many of the people of that era, the musicians, when I was building studios in the middle 60s, Universal Audio was one of the ones that was owned by a man out of Texas, and was operated by Al Jones and Sonny Jones. But those kinds of sessions that I was doing in those days with them were the predecessors to country rock, in my opinion, which was rockabilly. And working with James Burton or Dorsey Burnett or a multitude of those musicians, again, you had people who had been tagged as rockabilly, but they were then the Wrecking Crew of the new generation of music—The Beach Boys, you name it.

So it was sort of the older folks coming in—when I say ‘older,’ they were in their thirties and forties!—who were really making the music for the generation of the teens—The Beach Boys—who were now starting to get hits. You had this incredible sophistication of musicianship, which has always been my inspiration in my life. I had all those influences in my upbringing—such a potpourri of rockabilly, blues … not so much jazz, but musicians that are quite capable of going in that area, but didn’t really bring it into the studio, because that’s not the hit stuff that was happening at that point in time.

So, when Loggins & Messina came, I had all the experience and I did not want Kenny and I to be labeled. I did not want us to be tagged, for fear that we would be put in a pigeonhole again, and not be able to really have our music come out. So, I purposely kept everything as diverse as I possibly could. Therefore, when you hear ‘Danny’s Song,’ you hear folk music; when you hear ‘Listen To A Country Song,’ you hear country rock; when you hear ‘Rock And Roll Mood,’ you’re hearing more of an R&B kind of feel coming out there; when you hear songs like ‘Vahevala,’ I’m bringing in some Caribbean, I’m bringing in a whole potpourri of the type of musicians—Tommy Reynolds and the people that I worked with in the studio in those days. In fact, I used Milt Holland, who was a percussionist on every album I produced in Poco and Loggins & Messina—and my own solo career, at a point where he liked to tour.

I chose the most creative musicians I could find when I was doing sessions, to be a part of that, to augment those of us who were younger. Having Milt Holland play percussion—even just a simple shaker and Merle Brigante [on drums] freed him up to be able to play more comfortably, because he didn’t have to be the time keeper. He had somebody there who was a professional and a musicologist doing it for him, who added a feel in terms of his education and what he brought to that instrument of knowing how to play the 16th notes and what notes to accent to make it swing or fall in a certain direction. So the idea of what that was all about when I was moving into Loggins & Messina was keeping it very open in keeping it creative, so that anything could come in and allow us to be inspired to move in any direction we might want to go in.

DARYL ‘THE CAPTAIN’ DRAGON Without The Beach Boys, I don’t think Captain & Tennille would have made it. To me, that six-year-long experience of my being employed by The Beach Boys was like going to college. It was like attending Beach Boys/pop-music-biz college. That’s kind of like a credit you would get if you’re going to college and you found yourself learning what touring on the road is, as well as what the music industry really is—and that is not always a pretty picture. Due to the fact that I learned so much, i.e. I learned studio recording techniques, how to produce, how to deal with managers, and how to not ask for a salary raise, etc.

I learned the hard way—to be very aware/cautious of the fact that agents, nightclub owners, state fair representatives, etc., can—and often DO—screw you. For example, you show up at a concert and they suddenly discover that they don’t have the money that they promised to pay you upfront. Thus, you end up playing hardball as well, and threaten to pack up and go to the next venue.

I have two brothers, Doug and Dennis—which equals three brothers total—just like the Beach Boys have Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson. Two of the Wilson Brothers are gone now,⁶ but my brothers are still kickin’. This Dragon/Wilson collaboration—meaning that all of us six brothers were on the road together—was quite invigorating. The Dragon brothers working as backup musicians and the Boys are just that … THE BOYS. We kind of related to each other. We discovered that all of us six brothers had physically abusive fathers, we were brought up in dysfunctional families, all of us were all musically inclined, we were all ‘rebels,’ so to speak, and had what is defined as insanity in our heritage, etc., etc.

TONI TENNILLE [Captain & Tennille singer, keyboardist] Daryl had been with The Beach Boys for I think five or six years when I met him. And I met him because he flew up to San Francisco, to audition for me—I had written a musical called Mother Earth, which was kind of a rock musical for ecology. Which in 1969, was just starting to really come to the forefront. So I wrote it with one of the directors, and we opened it in San Francisco—at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre, in the summer of 1971. We were getting ready to move it down to LA, where we had a booking. And the keyboard player we had couldn’t go with us. So someone—and I don’t even remember who—recommended Daryl. I did know that he was between Beach Boys tours—The Beach Boys were taking some time off. So Daryl—after hearing a recording of the songs I had written and me singing them—decided to come up to San Francisco and audition for me. When I heard him play, I hired him. He was fabulous.

Then Mother Earth went on without me—I left for various reasons. Daryl and I started working in clubs, to see if we could get some kind of sound together. So we worked in dumps all over LA—just doing our best to get some work, so we could work out a sound between the two of us, to see if we had anything that would work. In the meantime, Daryl got a call from Carl Wilson, who said, ‘Our regular acoustic piano player wants to take a year off and finish his degree. Do you know anybody?’ And Daryl said, ‘Oh yeah, I know this gal. She can