Steve Ellis, Voice of 1967 Hit 'Everlasting Love,' Dies at 76

Steve Ellis, the English singer whose band Love Affair knocked the Beatles from the top of the U.K. singles chart in February 1968 with "Everlasting Love," died on Friday, Oct. 30. He was 76.

His death was confirmed on his Facebook page. The post cited "complications from a chronic illness" and said Ellis "peacefully left the world on the evening of October 30, 2026, in the presence of his loved ones." No exact cause of death was given.

How did a teenager topple the Beatles?

Love Affair formed in 1966, when Ellis was still in his teens. Written by Buzz Carson and Marc Gayden, "Everlasting Love" was first a hit for American singer Robert Knight, reaching Number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. Love Affair's version, released in December 1967, went further — all the way to Number One in Britain, displacing the Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye."

Ellis remembered the recording session as an ambush of the best kind. He arrived at the studio expecting his bandmates and instead found a 40-piece orchestra and top session players.

"Two takes, done. That was it," Ellis said in a 2015 interview.

The group's publicity team staged a stunt to promote the single: the band climbed the statue of Eros at the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in London's Piccadilly Circus. Ellis got stuck at the top. Firemen rescued him, police arrested the band, and the court imposed fines. Two months later the song sat at Number One.

What did Ellis do after the hit?

Love Affair scored three more U.K. Top 10 singles: "Rainbow Valley," "A Day Without Love" and "Bringing on Back the Good Times." Ellis left the group in 1970 and formed the band Ellis with keyboardist Zoot Money. His next project, Widowmaker, released two albums in the late Seventies with modest success.

By the early Eighties, Ellis had quit music entirely. He lived in the South of England and, by his own account, worked happily on the docks — until a freak forklift accident destroyed his feet and triggered nearly a decade of surgeries and physical therapy.

Once recovered, Ellis returned to performing and recorded several albums, including the 2015 release The Best of Days, which featured Roger Daltrey of the Who and Paul Weller.

How did Ellis feel about his signature song?

For years, Ellis refused to perform "Everlasting Love" live. He eventually relented, and the song closed his sets to roaring audiences.

"You can't turn your back on your heritage; you cannot not do what people want," Ellis said. "It's become one of those songs of its time, of its era. When we play it live, everybody goes mad. We usually finish up with it and maybe we go back on after. It used to be a bit of a curse and I thought, 'You know what. I'm lucky, really.' To have a record of that magnitude at 17 years old. It's served me very well."

The takeaway: a singer who hit Number One at 17 spent a lifetime making peace with three minutes of vinyl — and, on his own account, came out lucky. "Everlasting Love," covered by generations of artists since 1967, now outlives the voice that carried it to the top of the British chart.