| "Everlasting Love" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
.png) One of side-A labels of the US single | ||||
| Single by Robert Knight | ||||
| from the album Everlasting Love | ||||
| B-side | "Somebody's Baby" | |||
| Released | July 1967 | |||
| Recorded | 1967 | |||
| Studio | Fred Foster Sound Studio, Nashville, Tennessee | |||
| Genre | Soul, pop | |||
| Length | 2:54 | |||
| Label |
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| Songwriter(s) | Buzz Cason, Mac Gayden | |||
| Producer(s) | Buzz Cason, Mac Gayden | |||
| Robert Knight singles chronology | ||||
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| Official audio | ||||
| "Everlasting Love" on YouTube | ||||
"Everlasting Love" is a song written by Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden, originally a 1967 hit for Robert Knight and since covered numerous times. The most successful version in the UK was performed by Love Affair and the highest-charting version in the U.S. was performed by Carl Carlton. Other cover versions were done by Town Criers, Rex Smith & Rachel Sweet, Sandra Cretu, U2 and Gloria Estefan.
The original version of "Everlasting Love" was recorded by Knight in Nashville, with Cason and Gayden aiming to produce it in a Motown style reminiscent of the Four Tops and the Temptations. When released as a single in the U.S., the song reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967. Subsequently, the song has reached the U.S. top 40 three times, most successfully as performed by Carl Carlton, peaking at No. 6 in 1974, with more moderate success by the duo Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet (No. 32 in 1981) and Gloria Estefan (No. 27 in 1995).
In the UK, "Everlasting Love" was covered by the Love Affair: it achieved No. 1 status in January 1968, eclipsing the Robert Knight original. Also in 1968, a cover by the Australian group Town Criers reached No. 2 in the Australian charts. In the 1990s "Everlasting Love" reached the UK top 20 three times via remakes by Worlds Apart (No. 20 in 1993), Gloria Estefan (No. 19 in 1995) and, most successfully, a charity single by the cast from Casualty that reached No. 5 in 1998. In 2004, Jamie Cullum's version peaked at No. 20. 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.