Toni Tennille has narrated 2 audiobooks on Listento.it by 3 authors, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is Toni Tennille.
Toni Tennille
Summary
Since bursting onto the scene in the mid '70s, the pop duo Captain and Tennille have long defined the sparkling, optimistic idea of everlasting love, both in their music and through their image as a happy and, seemingly, unbreakable couple. They were an irresistible pair to millions of fans all over the world, further underscored by the rousing "yes, we can!" gospel of their biggest hit, "Love Will Keep Us Together". But underneath the image was an entirely different story that the fans never saw: a woman who fought a lonely struggle against the controlling and often bizarre behavior of her emotionally inaccessible husband. Toni Tennille: A Memoir is a visceral account of Toni Tennille's life from her childhood in the segregated South to her thrilling rise to fame in the world of pop music to where she is now: no longer one-half of a famed couple but a stronger woman for all she has experienced - both the good and the bad. Toni hopes that her story will help anyone who feels trapped in a toxic relationship realize that it is never too late to break away from it.
©2016 Toni Tennille (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
The Toni Tennille Interview
Summary
Toni Tennille: A Memoir is an okay title for the Alabama native’s life story, but once you read it to the end, you might agree with me that "Toni Tennille: Happy at Last" is more fitting. I cannot deny that I had low expectations as I began reading the autobiography of this singer who I always adored as a teen and held on to over the decades as a guilty pop pleasure. The glamour, the celebrity friends, parties, etc. - ho-hum, we’ve certainly heard it all before. But trust me, you haven’t heard this story.
If, like me, you are old enough to remember The Captain and Tennille as a top of the charts recording and touring sensation, you’ll remember Toni Tennile’s soaring vocals, her Southern charm, and her big-as-all-outdoors smile. As for The Captain - Daryl Dragon, the former keyboardist for The Beach Boys - what you’ll recall of him was that he rarely spoke while glowering at his wife and everyone else most of the rest of the time. He always wore a hat, eventually hiding behind sunglasses, too.
I spent a lifetime thinking it was an act. Toni Tennille spent a lifetime wishing it was an act. Turns out, The Captain was a miserable wretch of a human being and spent decades treating his wife like crap. Reading Toni Tennille: A Memoir is a soul-crushing experience; turning each page you’ll find yourself screaming, “Toni! Get away from that bastard!” But as anyone who has ever suffered emotional abuse at the hands of a spouse knows, it’s not always easy to make a clean break. I’m glad I read Toni Tennile: A Memoir; I’m even happier to know that the subject of the book is finally free.
Key interview moments:
4:40 - Toni Tennille describes her rough road with former husband Daryl Dragon - The Captain in The Captain and Tennille - but refuses to blame him or play the victim. Instead she blames his father, Academy Award-winning composer Carmen Dragon.
23:45 - Why has Toni Tennille dedicated “Muskrat Love” to former US Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger at every performance since 1974?
©2016 Bob Andelman (P)2016 Bob Andelman