TOP 100 SONGS OF 1967 ― NUMBER 67

50 years ago this year these songs were released. I took the top 100 from Rolling Stone for 1967 and put them in the order in which I think they should have listed, since this was the decade of the music I grew up on. Enough of the formalities, here we go. Enjoy. 

EVERLASTING LOVE ― ROBERT KNIGHT

GENRE ― Soul

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"Everlasting Love" is a song written by Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden, originally a 1967 hit for Robert Knight and since remade several times, most successfully by the Love Affair, as well as Town Criers, Carl Carlton and Sandra. In 1989, U2 released a version of "Everlasting Love" as a B-side on various formats of the "All I Want Is You" single.

Overview ―

The original version of "Everlasting Love" was recorded in Nashville by Robert Knight, whose producers Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden aimed to record him in a Motown style with especial reference to the Four Tops and the Temptations. Ultimately "Everlasting Love" was released as an A-side for Knight and reached #13 in 1967. Subsequently, the song has reached the US Top 40 three times, most successfully by Carl Carlton, who peaked at #6 in 1974, with more moderate success afforded later remakes by Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet (#32/ 1981) and Gloria Estefan (#27/ 1995).

In the UK "Everlasting Love" was covered by the Love Affair and achieved #1 status in January 1968. Although that version eclipsed the Robert Knight original, which stalled at #40, Knight's version was reissued in 1974 and reached #19 UK. Also in 1968, a cover by the Australian group, Town Criers, reached #2 in the Australian charts.

A 1981 duet version, sung by Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet, reached #35 UK, and in the 1990s "Everlasting Love" reached the UK Top 20 three times via remakes by Worlds Apart (#20/ 1993), Gloria Estefan (#19/ 1995) and, most successfully, a charity single by the cast from Casualty that reached #5 in 1998. In 2004, Jamie Cullum reached #20 with his version.

Thus, "Everlasting Love" is one of two songs to become a Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hit in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s (the other being "The Way You Do the Things You Do") and the only song to become a UK top 40 hit in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, always – with the exception of the 1980s – reaching the UK top 20.

In 1987, the rendition of "Everlasting Love" by Sandra reached the Top 20 in at least eight territories, going Top 10 in four. Her version also reached UK #45 in early 1989, affording "Everlasting Love" its second UK Top 50 incarnation of the decade. The versions of the song by the Love Affair, Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet, Worlds Apart, and Gloria Estefan also saw multinational chart action which was especially strong for the Love Affair version.

As early as 1968, "Everlasting Love" was remade for the country music market by Hank Locklin, who charted at #57. Narvel Felts would make the song a major C&W hit in 1979, reaching #14 on the Billboard C&W chart; a concurrent remake by Louise Mandrell peaked at #69 C&W.

Just prior to the release of Jamie Cullum's 2004 version, Buzz Cason theorized on his composition's appeal: "It's an uplifting song, with a real positive feeling, and it's danceable. I think people get a lift from it. When it comes to that chorus it just really lets go."

Robert Knight version ―

The original version of "Everlasting Love" was recorded at Fred Foster Sound Studio in Nashville. According to Cason, the track "had some different sounds on it that, for the time period, were kind of innovative. The string sound is actually a farfisa organ that Mac came up with, and we used a lot of echo." [2] Robert Knight recalls: "Buzz was into country [music] but Mac was R&B...so we made it more of an R&B song like the rhythm and melody Mac had. I practiced and practiced on with Mac, as he had written the song for my voice and made it mine. Mac used his bandmates: [drummer] Kenny Buttrey, [bassist] Norbert Putnam, Charlie McCoy and himself on guitar." [3] The background vocals on the song were performed by Buzz Cason and Carol Montgomery. Robert Knight recalls that he heard "Everlasting Love" for the first time at the actual recording session: "I didn’t sing it the [as] written[:] I made some changes to fit my voice, and I didn’t do it note for note. They had the melody going too fast, and it was jamming, it wasn’t doing right, it wasn’t sounding right. So I started what you call a steady step. I start singing a beat and a half: 'hearts-go-a-stray' – like that. It wasn’t like that in the beginning, and I think that's what got 'Everlasting Love' off the ground."

Although Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden had written "Everlasting Love" to serve as the B-side for their composition "The Weeper" which Robert Knight would record the next day, the hit potential of "Everlasting Love" was evident at the end of that recording session, and it was the last-named song which was issued as Knight's single in July 1967. "The Weeper" would in fact never be released, the track "Somebody's Baby" serving as the B-side for "Everlasting Love".

Debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 dated September 30, 1967, "Everlasting Love" had already reached #1 in Philadelphia and Detroit by the time of its Top 40 debut on October 21, 1967. Cason - "['Everlasting Love'] drove...the promotion guys nuts since it hit in one market then several weeks later pop up somewhere else." The track spent its second week at its Hot 100 peak of #13 on the chart dated December 2, 1967 then dropped off the Hot 100 over the next three weeks. The R&B chart peak of "Everlasting Love" was #14.

In its original release, Knight's "Everlasting Love" lost out in the UK to a cover by Love Affair, although Knight's version did spend two weeks at #40 UK in January 1968. In the spring of 1974, Knight's "Everlasting Love" had a second UK release to follow up the Top Ten success of the reissue of Knight's "Love on a Mountain Top"; this time the first-named track reached #19.

An airplay staple on American oldies radio stations (though less so than the 1974 Carl Carlton version), Knight's "Everlasting Love" has become a "cult favorite" of the beach music scene. In a 2011 interview, Buzz Cason stated that the Robert Knight original of "Everlasting Love" remained Cason's favourite version of the song: "I just think Robert's was the one [version] that had the magic in it."

From Wikipedia and Google (image)