Robert Knight has sadly passed away at the age of 72.

The legendary singer was known world-wide for his hit song “Everlasting Love.”
Robert Knight, who recorded the first version of ‘Everlasting Love’, one of the biggest songs to come out of Nashville, died Sunday, November 5, 2017 after a short illness.

He was born Robert Peebles in Franklin on April 24, 1945.

As young man, he was a member of the Fairlanes and sang lead for the Paramounts before becoming a solo artist.

In 1967, while performing during a fraternity party at Vanderbilt University, Mac Gayden heard "this voice coming from the Kappa Sigma House." He ran over there and met Knight as he was coming off the stage. "He didn't want to talk to me, but I gave him my card," Gayden remembered. Gayden introduced Knight to Buzz Cason, who signed Knight to Rising Sons Music, and they began working on an album.

Cason and Gayden had written a song called ‘The Weeper’, which they thought would be Knight's breakout hit. But then he cut another Cason/Gayden composition: ‘Everlasting Love’. It was, Gayden said, the last song cut during the session, "kind of like a throwaway tune."