Buzz Cason Dies: Songwriter Of Pop Classic ‘Everlasting Love’ Was 84
deadline.comBuzz Cason, the Nashville singer, songwriter and producer best known for “Everlasting Love,” the buoyant Motown-style pop song covered numerous times and appearing in many films since Robert Knight recorded the original in 1967, died June 16 at his home in Franklin, Tennessee.
He was 84. His death was announced by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. A cause of death was not specified. “Everlasting Love,” with its impossibly catchy and immediately recognizable chorus that begins “Open up your eyes/Then you’ll realize/Here I stand with my everlasting love,” has made the charts in various versions, most notably Carl Carlton’s 1974 cover that hinted at the imminent arrival of disco.
In the U.K., the song was a #1 hit in 1968 by London-based pop band Love Affair. Other artists who have covered the song, written by Cason with writing partner Mac Gayden, include Gloria Estefan, Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet , U2, German singer Sandra, Australian pop group Town Criers, UK boy band Worlds Apart and even the cast of the BBC series Casualty, who recorded a Top 5 version for charity in 1998.
According to The New York Times citing music rights organization BMI, the many versions of “Everlasting Love” have received more than 10 million plays to date, making it one of the most successful songs in any genre to come out of Nashville.
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