Steve Ellis died on 30 October, aged 76, from complications of a chronic illness. The announcement was quiet, the exit peaceful — a strange contrast to the noise he made at seventeen, recording a cover version of a Mac Gayden and Buzz Cason song between shifts on a building site, and landing a UK number one. Everlasting Love is one of those songs that belongs to whoever sings it most convincingly. Robert Knight recorded it first. Carl Carlton took it to number six in the US in 1974. But Ellis's 1968 Love Affair version has outlasted both on streaming services and in wedding playlists, which is the most honest measure of a pop record's staying power. The reason is simple: Ellis sounded like he meant it more. He had learned from James Brown — saw Brown live, described it as having his socks blown off — and carried that physical, committed approach into a very different sonic context: orchestral pop, Decca productions, the whole machinery of 1960s commercial Britain. Love Affair were not a pure band in the rockist sense. Ellis was the voice; the instrumental backing on Everlasting Love was apparently not played by the band members. That controversy trailed them. But Ellis himself was always the real thing — a soul-trained singer dropped into pop arrangements, and the tension between those two things is precisely what made the records work. Rainbow Valley, A Day Without Love, Bringing on Back the Good Times: four UK Top 10 hits across two years, all running the same formula of symphonic excess and emotionally unguarded performance. By the early 1970s, Ellis was already chafing. The band wanted to go progressive; Ellis, who had always been a soul-boy, had no interest. The screaming crowds were drowning out the music. He left, formed Ellis, whose debut album Roger Daltrey produced — an unlikely but real collaboration — then Widowmaker, which included ex-Hawkwind guitarist Huw Lloyd Langton. Neither project matched the commercial peak, but they showed a musician who was genuinely looking for something rather than coasting. The Paul Weller chapter is the most interesting late development. The 2008 album Best of Days reconnected Ellis with Daltrey and introduced Weller, who appeared on two tracks including an acoustic Everlasting Love. That collaboration deepened into Boom! Bang! Twang! in 2018, with Weller co-writing and co-producing, and continued through to Baby Faced Assassin, released in September 2024 — featuring three more Weller co-writes. Weller's tribute on Instagram — 'God bless ya Stevie safe travels everlasting love for sure' — was brief and genuine. The relationship lasted longer than anyone would have predicted from the outside, and it produced real work. What Ellis represents is something slightly different from the standard 1960s pop casualty narrative. He was not destroyed by the machinery; he was frustrated by it, left it, and kept making music for five decades at varying levels of visibility. The career after Love Affair was uneven, and the name recognition never recovered its 1968 peak. But Baby Faced Assassin arrived in the month he died — a last album made with a friend, on terms he controlled.
