Inside Tracks #33: "Everlasting Love" by Buzz Cason & Mac Gayden: Robert Knight, w/Covers by Love Affair, Carl Carlton, David Ruffin, U2, Rex Smith & Rachel Sweet & more

It's been malleable enough to be country, soul, pop, and even rock. Who are Cason & Gayden, and what was it about their exhilarating celebration of amour beyond tonight that prompted 6 dozen covers?

A 5-year-old began composing “Everlasting Love” in 1946. While watching a singer perform in college, he was inspired to complete the song he started in kindergarten, and offered the song to that singer.

Like most songs that are fortunate to have covers recorded by many, some were hits, and some were misses. Here’s one of the song’s two composers performing it in 2013:

“Everlasting Love” (first recorded in 1967) has been no different: With 73 covers, it’s one of only 2 songs to have entered the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 40 in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and is the only song to have become a UK Top 40 hit in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, reaching the Top 20 in every decade except the 1980s.

Meet the Songwriters

Buzz Cason

James E. “Buzz” Cason was born in Nashville in 1939. A Rockabilly Music Hall of Fame Member from his 1950s work with The Casuals (Nashville’s first rock’n’roll band) who became the backing band for Brenda Lee, and toured with Jerry Lee Lewis and other greats, Buzz has written hits for Jan and Dean and others in the ‘60s.

He then formed Creative Workshop Recording Studio in Nashville, where he helped start and co-write the songs on Jimmy Buffett’s first two albums. He also recorded hits at the Creative Workshop for Dolly Parton, the Oak Ridge Boys, Roy Orbison, Leon Russell, Merle Haggard, the Doobie Brothers, The Faces, and Elvis. 

He has contributed vocal session work for Elvis, Kenny Rogers, Kris Kristofferson, Ronnie Hawkins, Roy Orbison, Mickey Newbury, Levon Helm, John Denver and he was the voice of Alvin on several Chipmunks records.—BackstorySong.com

Buzz (l) with Jimmy Buffett at Creative Workshop, 1970, recording the latter’s debut album, Down to Earth, for Andy Williams’ Barnaby Records, a CBS affiliate. Cason sang backing vocals on the album, and contributed a song, a co-write with Buffett.

A 2017 interview with Cason at his Nashville home:

Cason’s 1962 song, “Soldier of Love,” a co-write with Tony Moon, was covered in 1963 by The Beatles, Live at the BBC (album released in 1994), as well as recorded by Marshall Crenshaw on his 1982 debut album, and Pearl Jam and Little Steven.

Mac Gayden

Mac Gayden, born in 1941, is also a Nashville native. He played with Charlie McCoy and the Escorts, who started playing sessions in Nashville. In the late 1960s, he helped establish two critically acclaimed bands, including Barefoot Jerry (with an album on Capitol Records, 1971), in which Gayden wrote the songs, played guitars and sang.

Gayden left Barefoot Jerry in 1971 to record his first solo album with Bob Johnston, with whom he had worked on Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde. Gayden has recorded as a session guitar player with JJ Cale, John Hiatt, Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, Simon and Garfunkel, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, Joe Simon, Elvis Presley, Ian and Sylvia, Jerry Jeff Walker, Loudon Wainwright, The Alarm, Pearls Before Swine, Ivory Joe Hunter, and others.

Gayden covers his and Cason’s song, 1976, on his ABC Records Skyboat album:

Begin the Parade o’ Covers!