Faded Love

Faded Love was written by the Wills family; John and his two sons, Bob and Billy Jack Wills. It contained lots of the instrument the fiddle and was released in 1950, sung by Bob, who was arguably the most successful musicians of the family, staying in the industry for 40 years.

Leon McAuliffe, Jackie DeShannon and Patsy Cline had hits with the song before Elvis recorded in June 1970 for his upcoming country album.

The song was based on the melody of ‘Darling Nelly Gray,’ which was about an African-American slave, who was separated from his wife and the next time they meet is in Heaven. It was written by a pastor named Benjamin Hanby, composer of just under 100 songs, who wrote the song in university.

The tune of ‘Nellie Gray,’ as the song is most commonly known, was also used to the humorous English song, ‘Keep yor feet still! Geordey hinny.’ It is written in ‘Georgie Dialect,’ spoken by residents of Newcastle, England and was written by Joe Wilson.

Another adaptation of ‘Nellie Gray’ was ‘Maggie May’ (nothing to do with the Rod Stewart song), which was regularly performed as a folk song in and around the city of Liverpool around the 1830's/1840's and it made an impressive comeback as a skiffle song in the 1950’s - it has been hinted that some of the lyrics in the song dates back to penal transportation and that first began in the early 1600’s.

A play, with music from Lionel Bart, was based around, and named after, the song in the mid-60’s and the Beatles included it on their 1970 album ‘Let It Be.' The song also featured in the 2017 film ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.’