Steve Ellis was the baby-faced teenage singer of The Love Affair, who had a chart-topping hit single with the earworm Everlasting Love in 1968.

It turns out the song has an odd history: it had already been a US hit for the otherwise unknown Robert Knight when it was offered to another band, Marmalade.

They turned it down and it ended up in the hands of a new band, Love Affair, who recorded it in a Motown style, produced by Muff Winwood… only to have it rejected by their record label, who sent singer Steve Ellis back into the studio with a group of session musicians.

Produced by Mike Smith, it featured a lavish arrangement by Keith Mansfield played by a 40-piece orchestra, and a quartet of backing vocalists – Kiki Dee, Madeline Bell, Lesley Duncan and Kay Garner.

Love Affair were reunited with Ellis, whose voice was compared to the sandpaper rasp of Steve Marriott, for four more hit singles, of which the only one I remember is Bringing On Back The Good Times.

In fact, Love Affair sold more singles in 1968 than any other band except The Beatles.

The band, who had ambitions to be serious progressive rockers, became frustrated at being labelled a “pop group” and treated like teen idols, unable to hear themselves on stage because of the constant screaming.

They were also unhappy at the role they played in the studio, their contributions all  but drowned out by heavy orchestral and brass arrangements behind Ellis’s vocals, although – much like The Sweet a few years later – they wrote and played on the heavier B-sides themselves.

Ellis later recalled how they deliberately sabotaged their career as pop idols: “In an attempt to break the mould we recorded a song far removed from the anthemic-like previous hits.”

Released at the end of 1969, Baby I Know was released in the hope of becoming a Christmas hit but failed completely, and Ellis left to embark on a solo career, while the rest of the band continued briefly with new vocalist, August Eadon.

They never had another hit but did record a rarely heard prog rock album in 1971 before breaking up altogether three years later, when keyboard player Morgan Fisher joined Mott The Hoople.

Ellis went on to join heavy rock band Widowmaker but left after recording their first album, and failed to find success with the eponymous Ellis, a partnership with keyboardist Zoot Money.