Steve Ellis: Love Affair, Ellis and solo vinyl compilation

The impassioned voice of Steve Elliss comes to life with a fresh new compilation of this early work with 60’s pop soul combo The Love Affair whilst a healthy dose of his solo years as Ellis plus his Steve Ellis material including a 2018 collaboration with the Modfather all serves up to deliver a concise refreshed collection released via Demon Music Group on 180g gold vinyl.

The collection kicks off with the all-time soul classic Everlasting Love, soothing soul vocals, deep funky bass, sharp horns lead perfectly for Ellis to deliver a vocal as iconic as Marriott, Winwood and King of the great white British soul singers, a masterpiece in recording which never ever tires, but only gets better with each listen. Bringing on Back The Good Times and Rainbow Valley also make a welcome appearance reminding the listener how catchy The Love Affairs tunes are, rivalling anything The Fab Four ever did.

Of the probably lesser known material El Doomo is a fab slow groover, in a similar vein to Should’ve Cried Today but sounding like Keith Richards on guitar, Good To Be Alive is a feisty number sounding like The Who Squeeze Box period which is probably nod towards Roger Daltrey who produced the track, which includes a soaring harmonica and rat ta tat instrumentation adding elements of heart-warming folk to the infectious number.

The couple of tracks lifted from Boom! Bang! Twang! the album co-produced by Weller, Lonely No More and Cry Me A River, the former is a northern soul piano stomper whilst the latter is a Rhodes keyboard blues shuffler. The combination of the 3 periods of Ellis career is a delight to the ears, it’s quite fascinating and charming to see an artist at the pinnacle of his craft for over 40 years still going strong.

Love Affair, Ellis and solo vinyl compilation can be purchased via the following link