Steve Ellis, the singer who found fame as the frontman of 60s pop-rockers Love Affair, has died aged 76. A message on social media announced that Ellis died “peacefully” on 30 October, after “complications from a chronic illness”. With his stirring, heartfelt croon, Ellis gave voice to one of the most enduring hits of the 1960s: Everlasting Love, which topped the UK chart in 1968.
Born in Edgware, north-west London, in 1950, Ellis formed the band Soul Survivors when he was 15 years old, inspired by Black US soul and R&B acts including James Brown who Ellis saw perform live: “He blew our socks off, he was phenomenal. I thought, that’s how a singer has to be, so I started doing gymnastics,” he told the Express in 2021. Soul Survivors morphed into Love Affair in the mid-1960s.
They were signed to Decca and their debut single, She Smiled Sweetly, was released almost concurrently with the original version by the Rolling Stones, and flopped. But the follow-up Everlasting Love, another cover version, was a major hit – recorded by Ellis between shifts on a building site. Written by Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden and originally recorded by US singer Robert Knight, Ellis’s vocal was arguably more spirited, really selling the song’s pledge of eternal fealty: “Need you by my side, girl, to be my bride / You’ll never be denied everlasting love.” It spent two weeks at No 1 in the UK, and while other versions of the song would become more successful in the US – including Carl Carlton’s No 6 hit in 1974 – Love Affair’s version has endured as the most popular on streaming services, and a staple of wedding ceremonies.
Buoyed by bombastic symphonic backings, Love Affair would go on to have three more UK Top 10 hits in the next two years. Rainbow Valley repeated the Everlasting Love formula – a Cason-Gayden song first performed by Knight, anchored by an emotionally wracked Ellis performance – and spent 11 weeks in the Top 40, and it was followed by A Day Without Love and Bringing on Back the Good Times. Ellis became disillusioned with Love Affair after their fame began to wane later in the decade: “The band wanted to go progressive rock and that wasn’t for me,” he later said.
The main reason we broke up though was the screaming [fans]. We couldn’t hear what we were playing.” In 1972 he formed the band Ellis – their debut album was produced by Roger Daltrey – and then Widowmaker, which also featured ex-Hawkwind member Huw Lloyd Langton and others, recording their self-titled debut in 1976 before they continued without him. He released solo album The Last Angry Man in 1977, followed by Basement Days in 1983.
Ellis returned in 2008 with the album Best of Days, which reunited him with Daltrey who appeared on two tracks. That album also kickstarted an enduring collaboration with Paul Weller, who appeared on two tracks including a live acoustic version of Everlasting Love. Ellis and Weller rejoined for 2018’s Boom!
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