FILE UNDER...
Soul under the skin
A young Mod’s forgotten story.
By Jim Irvin.
Heart-breakers: Love Affair, with Steve Ellis (centre) get affectionate in 1967.
W ITH HIS skinhead hairdo, Mod background and sexy rasp, Steve Ellis, quite unexpectedly, became a ‘dangerous’ teenybop pin-up in 1968. The band he fronted, Love Affair, was put together by the drummer’s wealthy dad, an effectively manufactured act which, initially, thought like the real thing. Their singles were cut using session musicians, a not uncommon late-’60s practice, but one that seemed to surprise the press enough to turn it into a semi-scandal, as if punters who had lofted the rousing, orchestral Everlasting Love to Number 1 – and three other singles into the Top 10 within a year – feeling the allure of the teenage Ellis’s soulful voice, had somehow been conned. The screaming girls didn’t care, but the resulting backlash – and the screaming girls – harmed the band’s chances of being taken seriously as ‘rock’ dawned. Love Affair were considered no more authentic than, say, labelmates The Tremeloes, and their enjoyable debut album, The Everlasting Love Affair, which included a blistering take of Joe South’s Hush – superior to Deep Purple’s cover – was a surprisingly low seller.