Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille divorcing

[filledeplage]

If they are looking into the future and Daryl ending up permanently in a nursing home, Medicare would only pay for a short stay (something like 30 days) then the rest is the responsibility of the patient until they essentially have no more money (Toni could keep the house), then Medicare steps back in.  I don't know how much money they have, but it could be used up very quickly.  Divorcing him and splitting their assets allows Toni to keep half of what they've saved, then Daryl would use up his half until that was gone and then Medicare would pick up the rest.

I have an uncle who is looking to divorce his wife for exactly this reason.

Not sure which is the more dispiriting: that someone has to contemplate such a move, or the system that puts them in such a position.

Andrew - it is unconscionable of the system, to make people choose between good medical care and depleting your hard-earned assets. You both nailed it.

[SurfRiderHawaii]

Calling John Manning for some new lyrics to "Love Will Keep Us Together".

If Daryl Dragon is hurting for money, maybe he should pull together the tapes of the album he was working on with Dennis (wishful thinking).

[Mr. Wilson]

Well Mr Rider you have come upon an excellent idea.. Also I think getting divorced is because of health care rules.. There were rules in place like that long before Obama Care... Its not that unusual for older people to live together and not get married..

[runnersdialzero]

If Daryl Dragon is hurting for money, maybe he should pull together the tapes of the album he was working on with Dennis (wishful thinking).

Purty gross suggestion, methinks.

[Mr. Wilson]

Well maybe Bruce could organize a concert for them..!

[SurfRiderHawaii]

If Daryl Dragon is hurting for money, maybe he should pull together the tapes of the album he was working on with Dennis (wishful thinking).

Purty gross suggestion, methinks.

How so? I'm sure there are some interesting things lying around from Dennis and Daryl.

TMZ also examined the divorce papers, and reports that they have "special mention of health insurance coverage."  It has been indicated before that Daryl's Parkinson-related condition has been producing financial difficulties for him and Toni - in 2011 they were forced to sell their old house in Prescott, Arizona at a loss, and moved into a smaller one.  So it could be that medical costs are one factor forcing the split. 

To quote  Bellagio 10452   http://www.esquarterly.com/bellagio/unreleased.html

"Poops/Hubba Hubba
recorded spring 1971-1972
produced by Dennis Wilson & Darryl Dragon
It's a New Day - Behold the Night - Ecology - Baby Baby - Wouldn't it Be Nice to Live Again - Old Movie - Slow Song - Make It Good - Barbara
(track sequence not known)
 
   Despite his lack of material on Surf's Up (reportedly due to a falling out with Carl over sequencing), it's undeniable that in the early seventies, Dennis was the major creative force of The Beach Boys, and equally hardly surprising that he gave serious thought to forging a solo career, to which end he worked intensively in Brian's home studio with the pre-Captain & Tennille Darryl Dragon and band engineer Steve Desper. The results of theses sessions were a precursor to his only released solo album five years hence, richly textured soundscapes imbued with considerable passion. Although the sessions continued into early 1972, the fate of the album was effectively sealed when he offered "Make It Good" and "Old Movie" (a Surf's Up outtake reworked as "Cuddle Up"... and also as "4th of July": apparently "Old Movie" was a catch-all title used by Dennis back then) to round out Carl And The Passions - So Tough - where they naturally stuck out like a pair of sore thumbs ! (A demo of "Barbara" was released in 1998 on Endless Harmony). Some further points - the title(s) of the album were tentative, the Beach Boys reportedly played "Baby, Baby" during their 1972 fall tour, "It's A New Day", a collaboration with Stanley Shapiro, was recorded (at Sunset, with a Blondie Chaplin lead) for possible use in a hair grooming product promo, upon which The Beach Boys expressed an interest in cutting it. However their version was never completed, foundering in a legal morass.  "Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again", another magnificent Wilson/Shapiro opus, was another Surf's Up outtake (and ws slated to be included on the proposed DVD-A of the album). One final interesting observation from Steve Desper: not only does he contend that "90% of [the album] was 90% done", but that a lot of Pacific Ocean Blue had its origin in these sessions. Hmmmmmm…
Possibility of release: wouldn't it be great to hear this as part of a Dennis Wilson box set ?  Realistically, unlikely in the extreme… but stranger things have happened."

[rn57]

http://www.tmz.com/2014/01/23/tmz-live-justin-bieber-charlie-sheen-president-obama-eg-daily-lupita-nyong-o-captain-and-tenille-tori-spelling-dean-mcdemott/

The above podcast contains, starting at the 10 minute mark, a pretty intense discussion of the passages in the divorce papers re health insurance.  The AP's report said that the papers stated that Daryl and Toni were splitting all assets right down the middle, and neither was seeking spousal support.  That would imply that their house would be sold and the proceeds divided...which raises the implication of where Daryl would go - whether his condition might have gotten to the point where he would have to enter a care facility. 

Meanwhile, this has shown up on the White House website:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reconcile-captain-and-tennilles-marriage/GsfPtkCt

Maybe the petition's writer buys the Obamacare-is-not-keeping-us-together argument and figures that if the President broke it, he should fix it.

[KittyKat]

Would you just stop with the political BS? They're both old enough for Medicare and "Obamacara"/ACA does not apply to Medicare. They may have Medicare supplemental policies, but again, that's not under the umbrella of ACA.

Long term care was never covered even before ACA, and it isn't now.  There is also no assistance available for people who aren't ready for a nursing home. A person has to be very ill to qualify for a nursing home. Most very disabled people either need to have a family member or hire practical nurses to come into their home, or both. If they can't or won't do that, then they can go to an assisted living facility, but assisted living facilities aren't covered by Medicare or Medicaid, and never have been. They're not cheap, either.

Toni is an older person herself.  She's not built like an East German shotputter so helping him in the shower or whatever he might need help with now or in future is not something she may be able to do. She risks injuring herself or ruining her health. They have no kids to help them. As it is, a lot of adult children aren't always there to help or aren't willing to do so. She posted on her blog a few years ago that Daryl was refusing to go to dinner or movies due to not wanting people to see him like he is, which may have led to her become depressed since she could barely leave the house. I can imagine it's worse now and I think it's terrible that some people may be judging an elderly woman for not "taking care" of her husband or are using this case as some kind of political football to prove a point. It's a tragedy. That's about all you can say about it.

[rn57]

OK, until further solid info is available on the why and wherefore of the split I'll stay clear of Sandbox territory.

But looking at the bio on C&T's site, I see something that puzzles me, and I figure AGD would know the answer right away, so here goes.

(An aside about C&T.  In the recent articles on the split the act as often been called The Captain & Tennille.  But their official name has always omitted the definite article, as all their album covers and record labels show.)

Now, at the bio page,

http://www.captainandtennille.net/ct_completebio.html

Toni states that after the duo's self-released 45 ("The Way That I Want To Touch You" b/w "Disney Girls") started getting a bit of airplay around LA,  C&T were approached by three major labels. 

One is identified by Toni as CBS - she says the label passed because it already had a blonde female singer signed in the form of Chi Coltrane of "Thunder and Lightning" fame.

Another was A&M, which offered the duo a deal that allowed them to produce and arrange at least the first album. Then as now, that was not an easy proviso for a new act to get, and it was apparently the primary reason they signed.

The third was RCA....and that's where our favorite Mr. Tambourine Man comes in.  Bruce is quoted in the bio as saying: "Terry Melcher and I got them a deal with RCA, but RCA backed out after seeing them live, saying they were an older lounge act."

I guess what Bruce is saying is that he and Terry offered them a contract with Equinox, their RCA-distributed label which was in operation by this time (toward the end of '74, I'd guess), but that the A&R brass at RCA overruled them.

I was under the impression that B&T did not need RCA's OK to sign an act at Equinox.  But maybe that applied only for one-off 45 deals with an option for an album deal if the single went anywhere.  AGD (or anybody else expert on Equinox) - what was the label's arrangement with Nipperland?

As for the reasons RCA gave - it seems pretty likely whoever saw them perform had the example of Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan in mind.

Blanchard and Morgan are, indeed, the original chart-topping husband-and-wife dual-keyboard act, preceding the pairing of Daryl and Toni by about six years. After years in the vinyl-boothed trenches of Miami, they went to Nashville and scored a #1 country and #23 pop hit with "Tennessee Birdwalk" -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-OrVQaqkg0

- but only had two or three more solid hits in the country charts.  By 1974 they were back in lounges.  Note the reference to ages as well. Toni has always been blessed enough to look about a decade younger than she is, but evidently RCA's people thought Daryl was a little too stolid-looking for the youngsters.

[KittyKat]

Yes, but Daryl is the original Yacht Rock-er, with his jaunty cap. Why did he start wearing the cap and how did he get "The Captain" nickname?

[Mikie]

Mike Love gave him that name.  He started wearing the hat soon after.

[Pretty Funky]

Got a mention on Letterman last night.

Said things haven't gone well for the Captain ever since he ran that cruise ship aground off the coast of Italy a few years back.   

[rn57]

Lookiing around at info about C&T online, I see a bunch of things I didn't know about.

 Like the fact that the flower-power musical Toni composed, Mother Earth (through which she met Daryl), actually made it to Broadway for a couple of weeks in the fall of 1973.  The producer was Roger Ailes.  Yes, as in the head of Fox News. It turns out there's quite a bit about this show in the new book about Ailes by Gabriel Sherman.

But I saw something else, that I'd plumb forgotten ages ago - that Daryl toured with Al and BB's Family & Friends in '99, one of his very infrequent ventures onto a stage without Toni after they met. Via news.google, I see he was doing shows around the country with them that spring.  But he had gone by the time the Vegas live CD was recorded that November.  Does anybody recollect how long he gigged with them?

[c-man]

Mike Love gave him that name.  He started wearing the hat soon after.

Other way around.

[c-man]

Lookiing around at info about C&T online, I see a bunch of things I didn't know about.

 Like the fact that the flower-power musical Toni composed, Mother Earth (through which she met Daryl), actually made it to Broadway for a couple of weeks in the fall of 1973.  The producer was Roger Ailes.  Yes, as in the head of Fox News. It turns out there's quite a bit about this show in the new book about Ailes by Gabriel Sherman.

But I saw something else, that I'd plumb forgotten ages ago - that Daryl toured with Al and BB's Family & Friends in '99, one of his very infrequent ventures onto a stage without Toni after they met. Via news.google, I see he was doing shows around the country with them that spring.  But he had gone by the time the Vegas live CD was recorded that November.  Does anybody recollect how long he gigged with them?

Not very...maybe even only one or two shows, if that. He WAS with them for their only TV appearance that I'm aware of, on the Regis & Kathy Lee show in October or November of '98.

[Tony S]

Didn't know they were on Regis; would have loved to have seen that. Hope it shows up on You Tube.

[Dave Modny]

Didn't know they were on Regis; would have loved to have seen that. Hope it shows up on You Tube.

They did Darlin' with Carnie and Matt trading leads. As far as I can remember, that was the only complete performance to make it to actual air, but IIRC, they also did a couple of songs leading in and out of the breaks (don't know how complete they were in terms of what the studio audience actually saw). I think I Can Hear Music was one of them. Al did a short sitdown interview as well where he referenced Carl's passing. The show aired on November 23, 1998.

I taped it, but I have a better chance of hitting the lottery than finding that VHS tape these days. Though, I also upped an audio-only file of Darlin' to a mailing list in that primitive, pre-YouTube era...if perhaps that's still floating around somewhere in cyberspace?


Maybe, someone else taped it...and could possibly up it?

[Mikie]

Mike Love gave him that name.  He started wearing the hat soon after.

Other way around.

I checked before I posted that to make sure of the order. Assuming that Wikipedia isn't always correct, I posted it anyway. Here's what they say:

"Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love gave him the nickname "Captain," and it stuck; Dragon began the tradition of wearing a nautical captain's hat to go along with the name".

Daryl's version: "It was after I started jumping around on the piano on stage during Help Me Rhonda, I kind of did something as a joke and called myself Captain Keyboard and got Mike Love to introduce me and give me a solo. We got a crowd reaction and then everybody started jumping around and that's when Mike Love started dancing on stage like Mick Jaggar".

Also, Toni stops short of calling it Parkinson's. It's "a neurological condition (not Parkinsons, but something similar) that causes him to have tremors". And forget his shyness of going out in public because of his condition, he just flat out can't play keyboards any longer.

[KittyKat]

Toni must have deleted the most recent posts on her blog. The story I read a few days ago linked to her blog and she had a post from 2011 where she stated that Daryl was not wanting to leave the house due to being self-conscious about his appearance, even for something like going to a movie or a restaurant. The post was reprinted in a news story about the divorce, which is where I saw it (and it provided a link). Maybe she felt the media was twisting that against her and it was too much of an invasion of privacy to leave it up on her blog. Not to mention harmful to Daryl's morale.

[runnersdialzero]

If Daryl Dragon is hurting for money, maybe he should pull together the tapes of the album he was working on with Dennis (wishful thinking).

Purty gross suggestion, methinks.

How so? I'm sure there are some interesting things lying around from Dennis and Daryl.

"Hey, I know you're dying and all, but you should do something for me."

[SurfRiderHawaii]

If Daryl Dragon is hurting for money, maybe he should pull together the tapes of the album he was working on with Dennis (wishful thinking).

Purty gross suggestion, methinks.

How so? I'm sure there are some interesting things lying around from Dennis and Daryl.

"Hey, I know you're dying and all, but you should do something for me."

He isn't dying at the moment but it does sound like he needs some money with selling a house, getting a divorce and medical expenses.
As I said, wishful thinking that unreleased stuff gets out before it's gone forever.

[rn57]

Toni must have deleted the most recent posts on her blog. The story I read a few days ago linked to her blog and she had a post from 2011 where she stated that Daryl was not wanting to leave the house due to being self-conscious about his appearance, even for something like going to a movie or a restaurant. The post was reprinted in a news story about the divorce, which is where I saw it (and it provided a link). Maybe she felt the media was twisting that against her and it was too much of an invasion of privacy to leave it up on her blog. Not to mention harmful to Daryl's morale.

It's true that Toni, although being the "outgoing" and "talkative" member of the duo, generally tends to be poised and diplomatic about what she says.  It was a little uncharacteristic of her to get that personal  in communications with the public, so I'm unsurprised she removed the post.  

By contrast, when Daryl is persuaded to be interviewed, he usually lets it all hang out.  Such as in that Earcandy online thing, and also in this clip from Toni's short-lived TV talk show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlnvs0uGQRY

- where, a couple of years short of 40, he speaks movingly about the plight of the elderly in American society, apparently having his dad Carmen in mind. Words that have a particular resonance now.  (Daryl's siblings were mentioned above. Both of his brothers are still around, but one sister died in 2010 and the other, the wife of ex-Sunray Rick Henn, passed away last year.  So he's been burdened with losses apart from his physical disability.)

Another clip from that show, a little bit more lighthearted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJsncglFU4I

One can picture the scene at home with the Dragons.  Daryl, practicing scales at the keyboards. Toni walks in.

TT: Honey, guess what? We've booked Dusty Springfield for the show!

DD: Great! (as he's well aware that it would have almost been easier to get JD Salinger on the set than Dusty)

TT: She wants to sing "Proud Mary" with me.

DD: Oh, yeah, CCR (as he starts in on the riff).

TT: Yes, we'll do it in the style of Tina Turner.

(At the mention of whom, DD stops playing, and proceeds to Toni's walk-in closet.  Later, Toni does the song dressed in one of her sorority outfits from Auburn in 1959.  No silver lame crotch-length minidress for her!  Anyway, the performance is very amusing - Dusty flubs a line, Toni comes in too early a la the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie," and the band, led by future soundtrack maestro Ira Newborn, is having a blast.)

[rn57]

If Daryl Dragon is hurting for money, maybe he should pull together the tapes of the album he was working on with Dennis (wishful thinking).

Purty gross suggestion, methinks.

How so? I'm sure there are some interesting things lying around from Dennis and Daryl.

"Hey, I know you're dying and all, but you should do something for me."

He isn't dying at the moment but it does sound like he needs some money with selling a house, getting a divorce and medical expenses.
As I said, wishful thinking that unreleased stuff gets out before it's gone forever.

Well, whenever a musical act is in the news in a big way - and the truth is that only Justin Bieber's arrest outpaced C&T's split when it came to trending music-related stories in the days before the Grammys - then book editors in NYC start to get interested.

And the fact is, while on this board Daryl and Toni may be thought of by some primarily as two guys in the backing band who split and hit it big, across America they have a significance in the public eye that has been belied by the very low profile they've had in recent years. 

 Heck, Ron Sexsmith Tweeted a few days ago about Nostradamus writing that the end of days would be signaled by a) Dylan putting out an Xmas album and b) C&T divorcing.  (He left out WIBNTLA getting an official release, but OK, this is Twitter and there's only so many characters.)

So possibly somebody could approach the duo about a book. There's a lot of their story we don't know.

 For example, I always wondered what the heck Toni did between coming to LA from 'Bama in 1960 and meeting Daryl thru her musical in early '72 or whenever it was.  Looking thru books.google's search, I got an answer from a book about Auburn University alumni - apparently she spent most of the 1960s as a receptionist/secretary at North American Aviation in Downey, California, where she says she had a top-secret security clearance one level below that of the President of the United States.

(Downey is the hometown of Richard & Karen Carpenter, of course, which might help explain how Toni came to be such a close friend of Karen's, besides her labelmate, later on.)

 A publishing deal - could it keep them together like love did?

[Sheriff John Stone]

I think the impending divorce got so much attention because of the irony of their biggest hit being "Love Will Keep Us Together". Well, it (love) didn't. That irony was too much for the media, or anyone who likes to point those things out, to let go. If the Captain & Tennille never sang that song, and "Muscrat Love" was their biggest hit, you might've seen a sentence or a paragraph at most.

The Captain must already be lonely, which is why he started posting a lot here recently!

[Ron]

I think you're right, the news was all about that song title. 

I'm one of those people who when a pun or a joke is that obvious, I refrain from it,

especially when it's about old people  going through a divorce, and disease, at the same time.