Toni Tennille Reveals Radio Rejections, Following Barbra Streisand & More in Memoir Sneak Peek

Jessie Katz
·1 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Love won’t keep everyone together — not even for romantic pop peddler Toni Tennille, as she describes it in her new tell-all, Toni Tennille: A Memoir.

From her childhood spent in the segregated south to her meteoric fame as one half of the duo who generated such massive pop hits as “Love Will Keep us Together” and “Muskrat Love,” Tennille takes readers through the more difficult moments of her life that many Captain and Tennille fans have never been privy to before. (The book is billed as the story of a “woman who fought a lonely struggle against the controlling and often bizarre behavior of her emotionally inaccessible husband.”)

More from Billboard

In Audible’s audio sneak peek of the book, which dropped in both hardcover and audiobook format on April 1, Tennille describes her early start as a club singer in 1960’s downtown Detroit when she was married to her first husband, Kenneth Shearer. (They would divorce in the ’70s before Tennille would re-marry to her “Captain,” Daryl Dragon.) She describes one particular residency in which she followed an up-and-coming artist who club owners described to her as “unpredictable and eccentric” – that person would turn out to be Barbra Streisand. She also explains the bizarre reasoning behind why radio stations wouldn’t hire her for commercial work — but why that same reason would ultimately play to Captain and Tennille’s favor (when they would become “one of the few white acts played on soul stations.”)

Hear the clip, read by Tennille herself, below:

Best of Billboard