Han’s Worst Hits of the 70’s focuses on a real stinker today- “Muskrat Love” by  Captain a &  Tennille. The other day I was pretty tough on Styx. I should have saved all that venom for this act- Captain & Tennille. It is hard to pick a “worst hit” from these two- since everything they ever did was trash.

In looking up Captain & Tennille in my copy of Joel Whitburn’s Top Pop Singles book- I expected to see more hits from these two- than just nine. They had their nine hits between 1975 and late in 1979. Most of the nine were big hits- Love Will Keep Us Together #1, The Way That I Want To Touch You #2,  Lonely Night[Angel Face} #3, Shop Around and Muskrat Love #4, Can’t Stop Dancin’ #13, You Never Done It Like That #10, You Need A Woman Tonight #40 and their last hit was a #1 in Do That To Me One More Time.  I remember their television show in 1976-77. My sister would watch it and it seemed like Toni Tennille dominated the show. Daryl Dragon wore his Captain’s hat and didn’t seem to get a word in. Daryl got the name The Captain- while he was the keyboardist for The Beach Boys- Mike Love gave him the nickname.

I don’t know how a muskrat smells but this song smells like a skunk. It was written by and first recorded by Willis Alan Ramsey in 1972 on his self-titled debut album. The song was originally titled “Muskrat Candlelight.”  America covered the song a year later- renaming it Muskrat Love- and it reached #67 as a single. Then Captain &Tennille got their hands on it- and the single went to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Captain &Tennille even played the song in from of the Queen at The White House. Muskrat Love appears regularly on all the ‘worst songs’ lists that have popped up over the years. It remains a song that will live in infamy.

We know that some great bands- were great even though members of the band were famous for fighting and feuding- Mick and Keith of The Rolling Stones come to mind. The Gallagher brothers in Oasis. Ray and Dave Davies in The Kinks, the Everly Brothers at one point still performed together but hadn’t talked to one another for years. But Captain & Tennille prove you can also make bad music-and not get along. [well maybe I am stretching it a bit here- I don’t know how they got along in their ‘day’ back in the 70’s but in recent years Tennille divorced The Captain due to his lack of communication- which if I remember their show correctly he never did talk much.}

Years later I read about Willis Alan Ramsey’s original and his album- considered something of an unknown classic. I got the album and it is a pretty good album and his original isn’t bad. Willis Alan Ramsey is still reportedly- 45 years later still working on his sophomore album.