Keeping Our Love Warm

by Joe ViglioneOf the nine songs recorded on the final album from the Captain & Tennille's heyday, their second and final disc for Casablanca titled Keeping Our Love Warm, five are written by songstress Toni Tennille while the other four are covers. With the duo's first release of the 1980s, they dip into a jazz/blues bag with their pop leanings still the major force. The conclusion of the album is as good as any two a.m. bar-closing R&B tune that you'll find, Tennille's dramatic reading of Isaac Hayes' "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)." Rusty Higgins' sax solo plays nicely against Daryl Dragon's fine acoustic piano, the Captain keeping away from his ostentatious bank of keyboards while Bill Severance is on drums. There are three drummers on this album as well as an LM-1 computer, filling in for the first disc without longtime bandmember and famous session player Hal Blaine. The jazz instrumental "Song for My Father" (by Horace Silver) shows what a creative musical bunch this is. This instrumental comes a long way from the "Broddy Bounce" of the Love Will Keep Us Together LP, the keyboard-oriented music the only song written for one of their two dogs. If anything, "Song for My Father" sounds like futuristic Steely Dan with a bit of the "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" bass riff. A cool song for jazz stations to play and blow minds with -- excellent musicology as most listeners probably wouldn't be able to name the group doing this tune so well. ... Read More...