NAZARETH - LOVE HURTS (1975)

Happy 80th Birthday to MANNY CHARLTON, founding member of Scottish rock outfit Nazareth and their lead guitarist from 1968 to 1990.

(born 25 July 1941)

NOTE: I've upscaled, re-edited and improved the colour saturation of this performance on German TV (Musikladen).

Performed as a power ballad, the Nazareth version of American songwriter Boudleaux Bryant's LOVE HURTS (first recorded by The Everly Brothers in 1960) is the most popular version of the song and the only rendition of "Love Hurts" to become a hit single in the United States, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1976.

Nazareth's version was an international hit, peaking at No. 1 in Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa and Norway.

The Nazareth single was so successful in Norway that it charted for 61 weeks on the Norwegian charts (VG-lista Top 10), including 14 weeks at No. 1, making it the top single of all time in that country.

A later recording by Nazareth, featuring the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, peaked at No. 89 in Germany.

The lyrics of the song were changed for Nazareth's 1975 recording, where the original line "love is like a stove/it burns you when it's hot" was changed to "love is like a flame/it burns you when it's hot".