I don’t normally go into the “making of” stuff on Popular, but this one is a great little snapshot of the 60s pop biz at work. The band formed as a rich man’s present to his aspirational drummer son – all photogenic teen boys, they worked their way round the London soul clubs, looking for a breakthrough, found it in this song. They could play a bit, but didn’t on this record – or any of their other hits. “Everlasting Love” struggled in the charts, was helped along by the band getting into trouble for climbing the Piccadilly Eros, and also by the £200 that Dad – a handbag magnate – slipped to Radio Caroline for airplay. It hit number one and the band were hearththrobs for a year, then vanished. Perfect.
The record’s pretty great, too. The label surely made the right decision ignoring the demo (on which the Love Affair actually played) in favour of sessionmen a full orchestra – in contrast to a lot of over-arranged 60s hits, “Everlasting Love” is tightly and smartly constructed: every element is there simply to make the record more exciting – the sudden stop and whistling breakdown before the climax chorus, the bass, the brass. None of it gets in the way of Steve Ellis’ vocal – the only member of the band on the hit, he puts in a fantastic performance. He’s taking his cues from soul music, but Ellis was only 18, which shows not in any fluffs or mis-steps but in a tremulous hoarse intensity – as the chorus hits again and again, he nails the overwhelming urgency of teenage love superbly. What you get is ruthless studio craft allied to hormone rush: classic boyband formula.
Score: 8
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the perfect single, just tremendous, I love it totally without reservation
For me this record sums up the hedonistic late 60s beautifully. The urgent bass & lovely brass stabs borrowed from Motown similar to McCartneys Got To Get You Into My Life. I don’t agree with the boy band analogy though. They all played instruments and gigged as a band. The fact that they were very young (average age 17) probably meant the record company would have insisted on experienced musicians in the studio probably to reduce recording time and ensure quality. This was pretty standard practice in the sixties for a lot of ‘pop’ bands.
Yeah, to clarify: I’m not saying that they *were* a boyband – I’m saying that the production process of the records (teen boy vocals/experienced studio hands) is the – or a – classic formula for great boyband pop.
I used to know Steve Ellis’s niece and nephew! What a claim to fame!
You know, I sort of hate this record but I’m not really sure why. I think it might just be all the cover versions that have ruined it for me. Great intro though.
The only other Love Affair song I think I’ve ever heard was ‘Bringing On Back The Good Times’.
‘It hit number one and the band were hearththrobs for a year, then vanished. Perfect.’
Bet they didn’t feel the same way about it…
A YEAR IS A YEAR MORE THAN SOME OF US!
(“us” does not include me obv)
According to the Record Collector article I got most of the info from, they were quite relieved! This might be hindsight talking, of course.
I think they were genuinely pissed off with the boyband following, seeing as how Ellis was a mate of Steve Marriott and they really just wanted to be another Small Faces.
It seems to me that a lot of British “boy-bands” (to use that anachronism) appeared around this time (Love Affair, the Herd, Amen Corner, etc.) and did moderately well for a brief spell in the UK but never made any impression in the US. Perhaps this had something to do with the transition among the more notable recording artists from an emphasis on singles to LPs. Most of the bands who focused on Top 40 singles throughout the late 60s and early 70s were quite ephemeral in the long run, the Jackson 5 being the possible exception (for better or worse).
I’ve heard the song hundreds of times (by, it would seem, as many artists), but I’m left wondering whether I’ve actually ever heard the Love Affair version. Possibly not. Still, the song itself is great pop stuff and, in its way, an “everlasting” song.
I’m suprised no-one’s mentioned the song was in fact a cover of the superlative original by Robert Knight (of ‘Love on a mountain top’ fame).
Love Affair did a great version and it’s also one of my favourite singles. Steve Ellis should have gone on to great things, as he had an amazing voice. He had a solo hit with the atmospheric ‘El Doomo’in the early 70’s and then joined the heavy rock band, Widowmaker, with ex-Mott guitarist, Ariel Bender. I saw them live in Shrewsbury in 1976 and never heard anything more of Ellis….
whereabouts in shrewsbury, dave?
(lord sukrat owns vast bleak estates in shropshire)
“Steve Ellis’s Love Affair” evidently played a gig in Edinburgh in 1995, because there’s a live album of it (added to 7Digital yesterday). Bet you can’t guess what the encore was.
About an hour ago I heard “Everlasting Love” (version by godknowswho) on television. It was being used to sell potato chips.
that is entirely appropriate: my love for crisps will NEVER DIE
I HAVE NEVER HEARD THIS SONG. Wait, I just went to Youtube, so now I’m hearing it. Sounds too gruffly StaxVolt for boyband. Kinda makes me think of pseudofreak pop bands like Friend And Lover (“I think it’s so groovy now that people are finally getting together”) deciding to go soul. And also as soon as he goes into the “Open up my eyes” bit I realize I’ve heard this song before but it must have been a cover version, or some group like the Supremes lifting that melodic bit on an otherwise different song, or something. Also, this is pretty good.
But anyway, I’m posting to object to the idea that whether or not you play your own instruments is a particularly important issue in whether or not you’re a boyband. (Like, the teenybopper audience knows when the first hear it that you’re not playing your own instruments, and that’s why they get all swoony over you). Has more to do with whether you sound like a boyband, surely.)
did Gloria Estefan cover thios in the 80’s???? just that i thought i have heard it in the 80’s for sure!!!!!
Isn’t the biggest factor whether you look like a boyband, though?
Looking like a boyband = looking like boys? Huge intention vs identification catagory errors being made here I think.
Trouble is boyband is a derogatory term which effectively means you are a muppet of the pop industry – you were put together by someone else, you don’t write your own songs or play instruments on your own records. Strictly it should only be used about the more recent trend of putting boy singers/dancers together in a ‘fake band’ but The Monkees are quite commonly thrown in as the first band to be ‘created’. I don’t agree with this as they were created with a TV audience in mind not records. Boybands weren’t really an entity until the 90s. So LA definitely do not qualify.
Ah, Intothefireuk, you are clearly not yet familiar with Tom’s poptimistic ideological position – in his world (and mine, for that matter) there’s no shame whatsoever in not writing your songs or playing the instrument on your records. He certainly meant no insult to The Love Affair by it.
“The Monkees are quite commonly thrown in as the first band to be created” — but only by people who don’t know much about pop history prior to the Beatles (which unfortuntely includes rock’s own routine understanding of its own precursors). Tom’s wider argument is that using “boyband” merely in a derogatory way — about the present OR the past — misses the bigger and more interesting question of whether muppetism and the “manufacture” of bands produces better or worse music. Motown and Phil Spector, to use two intensely over-used pre-Beatles examples, were both “fake band”-factories: the idea that writing yr own songs and playing yr own instruments INEVITABLY makes yr music better is simply false. In this perspective, “boyband” is (or anyway might be) complimentary: that’s where the enquiry starts, if you like.
Also I was saying that “ruthless studio craft allied to hormone rush” is a classic formula for boyband records (and success), not that whoever uses this formula is necessarily a boyband.
Mark is right in that I don’t use “boyband” as a derogatory term. There are generally good boybands – East 17, Five, Take That – and generally bad boybands – Westlife, Boyzone, One True Voice.
I agree that using the term in a 60s context is anachronistic though – I was being cheeky
(destroyer’s prow enters paddling pool)
Love Affair’s version was recorded second, but released maginally first, no? It’s most likely LA’s cover that was, indeed, covered by Gloria Estefan, as well as Rachel Sweet, the cast of Casualty, Scooter, and, inevitably, U2, who had both this and “Unchained Melody” as b-sides to “All I Want Is You”. Bono has great taste in songs to travesty.
Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason has the Love Affair version in the movie, but the Jamie Cullum version at the end and on the CD. For shame.
Isn’t the biggest factor whether you look like a boyband, though?
Would be embarrassing if you turned out to be girls, for instance. But anyway, fans of *NSync and Backstreet Boys in the years 1997 through 2001 probably didn’t use “boyband” as a derogatory term, either. That’s just my guess, mind you.
Everlasting Love has a great drum break by Clem Cattini, hopelessly mimed on TOTPs by Maurice Bacon.
I think young Trevor Horn must have listened long and hard to that drum break near the end…
Also some very fine bass playing going on there, almost Nigerian hi-life in style…sounds like Herbie Flowers, though I suppose it could have been Brian Odges…
According to Clem Cattini it was session player, Russ Stableford, playing a fender bas, who did the memorable bass lines on Everlasting Love
Read with interest various snippets on Love Affair, but can you help very desperate!!!!!!! Is there anywhere on this planet you can get black and white footage 68/69 of Everlasting Love or Bringing on Back the Good Times. All I have is Beat Club German A Day Without Love.. Seen Steve 4 times had a few words with him, got his autograph, and it is true still has a great voice. I look for more gigs on his site but he dosnt seem to be doing anything, maybe he is window cleaning in Brighton!!! Record Collector says he appeared on old grey whistle test early 76, with rock band widowmaker cotacted the mag with no luck as the mag said it hadnt been swiped.
your steve rudge
Hey, my father-in-law played with Love Affair as the bassist at some point in the band’s history. I don’t know all the details and I would really like to find out some for my husband. Does anyone have any info on Robin Boyle?
Re last 2 emails, You Tube.com has b&w 1968 footage of Love Affair singing Rainbow Valley. Robin Boyle isnt listed as a member of any of the line-ups of Love Affair that continued into the 1980’s-though there were a couple of counterfeit Love Affairs (!) playing on the cabaret circuit for a while
This is Russell Stablefords wife and grandson. Well spotted Bramble, Russell Stableford was the bassist on ‘Everlasting Love’. Nice to see somebdy know’s their stuff, since other sites credit the bassline to Herbie Flowers. If my Grandmother’s memory serves her correctly, all the session musicians arrived, and all they had to work with was the song, no music. As it was a long time ago she’s not 100% sure of the details of this, but if she is correct i think it goes to show the amazing talent of all the musicians who worked on this song to make it one of those legendary songs time wont forget.
sorry to be so dilatory, Lord Sukrat but it was the good old Music Hall in Shrewsbury (also saw Judus Priest and Bebop Deluxe there, in the same month Steve Ellis played)
i saw penetration and the buzzcocks there! supported by some local act who played in black and white checks and had a foam rubber “comedy” guitar
(also — a bit earlier — the PANTO every year, feat.the WENDY EVEREST DANCERS!)
(Your search – “WENDY EVEREST DANCERS” – did not match any documents.)
I think even Herbie thinks he was the bassplayer on the track!
Hi. This is Herbie Flowers. I’ve just found this great site regarding ‘Everlasting Love’ by The Love Affair. Can I make it clear that dear Russ Stableford played the memorable bass line on this recording. How my name was attached to it I’ve no idea. Russ was mainly responsible for helping me get ‘on the circuit’ by getting me to occasionally dep for him on gigs with Ray McVay & the like. That was after the work he did for Love Affair. I am eternally grateful to him for that. Probably Russ played on many many more hits than he is credited for. His sound is so distinctive, as was his gentle manner. He certainly played on many Serge Gainsburg records too to no acclaim. How I wish that record companies who claim not to have kept a history of who played on what would come clean, dig in their files and help truth be known. There is now a scheme called PAMRA that holds a little money for those musicians who actually played on loads of classic recordings. Seems such a shame others are getting it. God blesses you forever, Russ.
Thanks for posting, Herbie. You might also be interested in – and have memories to share on – Tom’s later post on “Grandad”:
https://popular-number1s.com/ft/2006/11/clive-dunn-grandad/
Interesting single to say the least,especially because of the number of cover. didn’t robert knight do the original (& rainbow valley)
A Kind of british version of Motown, together with a singer that sounds identical to Felix Cavaliere (the young rascals)
LOVED LOVE AFFAIR, THEY LOOKED GREAT AND SOUNDED FANTASTIC. I WAS ONLY 15 WHEN I FIRST SAW AND HEARD THEM, WHERE ARE THEY NOW DOES ANYBODY KNOW ?
hi can some1 please tell me how i can get a copy of this record and has it got everlasting love on it thanks my email address is
simikate2004@yahoo.co.uk thanks xxxx
STEVE ELLIS has carried on SINGING and PERFORMING despite having FEET CRUSHED in horrible DOCK WORKER accident when he went back to ORIGINAL TRADE in EARLY EIGHTIES.
MORGAN FISHER went on to join MOTT THE HOOPLE then diversified into AVANT-AMBIENT IMPROV with RECIDIVIST RENEGADES e.g. LUSCIOUS LOL COXHILL!
Dunno about the REST OF THEM but I hope they’re WELL.
This was the original “pub singer” song, surely?
It always comes back to me as fat bloke with a pint and a mic going “Heart gooes astrayyyyy, giving hurrrrrr when they goinnnnnnnn….”
Don’t know about that – I would have thought there were far likelier candidates in the charts of ’68, e.g. Delilah, What A Wonderful World, She Wears My Ring etc.
What, and they were all hits in January? Blimey, that’s one heck of a christmas pub stayback!
Not all in January, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard Everlasting Love done in the Club Style, unlike She Wears My Ring which dribbled out of every Jimmy Logan wannabe in seventies Glasgow, especially at wedding receptions.
Glad to say, I think I’ve heard it once, but that’s all.
I loved them in the 60’s b Steve Ellis was my hearthrob not only for just 1 year but for 40 yrs – still love his voice ! hopin to see him next year with the ‘new Amen Corner’ who i last saw when i was 14 many many years ago
The love affair and Steve Ellis were my hearthrobs for 37 years.Imet them at Top Rank in Leicester,all them years ago,and ill never forget…..xxxxx