Buzz Cason, Songwriter Best Known for ‘Everlasting Love,’ Dies at 84

Buzz Cason, a guiding force in the early days of Nashville rock ’n’ roll and a writer of the pop standard “Everlasting Love,” a surging profession of undying devotion that reached the pop Top 40 in four consecutive decades, died on June 16 at his home in Franklin, Tenn. He was 84.

His death was announced by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The announcement did not specify a cause.

A pivotal figure in Nashville’s evolution as a recording hub, Mr. Cason had a hand in virtually every facet of the music industry. He sang, wrote and published songs, as well as producing records and operating his own recording studio.

He had his biggest success as the writer, with Mac Gayden, of “Everlasting Love.” The R&B singers Robert Knight (1967) and Carl Carlton (1974) recorded hit versions of the song, as did Gloria Estefan (1995) and the ad hoc pop duo Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet (1981). U2 released a stripped-down take of “Everlasting Love” as one of two B-sides of the 1989 single “All I Want Is You.”

“We didn’t know what we had,” Mr. Cason said of the song in an interview at an event held in his honor at the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2014. “It was a really great radio song.”

“Everlasting Love,” in its many versions, has received more than 10 million plays to date, according to the music rights organization BMI. It is among the most successful songs in any genre to come from Nashville.

The Latin-inflected “Soldier of Love,” another of Mr. Cason’s best-known compositions (written with Tony Moon), was the flip side of the soul singer Arthur Alexander’s 1962 hit “Where Have You Been (All My Life).”

The Beatles performed “Soldier of Love” on the BBC in 1963, though their version was not officially released until it appeared on the 1994 compilation “Live at the BBC.” The singer-songwriter Marshall Crenshaw and Pearl Jam have also released renditions of the song.

But even before “Everlasting Love” and “Soldier of Love” brought him renown, Mr. Cason distinguished himself as a singer with the Casuals, a teenage combo formed in 1957 that gainsaid the notion that Nashville has always been a center only for country music.

“In Nashville we all kind of liked rock ’n’ roll more than we did country back in the ’50s,” Mr. Cason explained at the Country Music Hall of Fame event, citing Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley and Buddy Bailey, the lead singer of the Clovers, as influences.

The Casuals’ first single, a doo-wop ballad called “My Love Song for You” that Mr. Cason wrote with his bandmate Richard Williams, was released in 1957 but failed to chart. The group’s frenetic live performances nevertheless earned them invitations to appear on bills with headliners like Chubby Checker and Jerry Lee Lewis. They became Brenda Lee’s touring band in 1958.

Mr. Cason also teamed up with Mr. Williams and Hugh Jarrett, a former member of the vocal group the Jordanaires, in a trio called the Statues. Their rendition of “Blue Velvet” reached the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960.

Recording under the pseudonym Garry Miles, Mr. Cason had a Top 20 hit in 1960 with “Look for a Star,” a dreamy pop ballad that, as previously recorded by the British singer Garry Mills, had been heard in the movie “Circus of Horrors.” (“Can you imagine?” Mr. Cason later said. “We not only took the guy’s song, we pretty much stole his name, too. There’d be a huge lawsuit if you did that nowadays.”)

James Elmore Cason was born on Nov. 27, 1939, in Nashville, the younger of two children of James and Rosa (Jordan) Cason. His father, who was known as Roy, was a carpenter. His mother, who sang in church, taught young Buzz to sing harmonies. (He earned his nickname early on, he said in the 2014 interview, “I think because I made so much noise.”) By the time he was in high school, he and his classmates were listening to R&B on the Nashville radio station WLAC.

Mr. Cason’s introduction to performing came when he and his friends were invited to lip-sync over popular recordings on a local television show. That experience gave birth to the Casuals, which many claim was the first rock ’n’ roll band from Nashville.

He left the group in 1962 to work for Liberty Records in Los Angeles, where he and Leon Russell produced recordings for the Crickets, Buddy Holly’s former band, including a version of “La Bamba,” which became a hit in England. In 1964, Mr. Cason filled in for the band’s lead singer, Jerry Naylor, on a tour of Britain that included an appearance on the music television show “Ready Steady Go!”

Back in Nashville in 1965, Mr. Cason joined Ronny & the Daytonas, a band that specialized in hot-rod songs like “G.T.O.,” a Top 10 pop hit in 1964. While he was with the group, Mr. Cason wrote the ballad “Sandy,” a Top 40 single for the band in 1966. He also recorded with the Daytonas’ frontman, Bucky Wilkin, under the name Buzz and Bucky, while writing novelties like “Popsicle,” a Top 40 hit for Jan & Dean in 1966.

In the late 1960s Mr. Cason ventured into music publishing with the songwriter Bobby Russell. The two men hit it big in 1968 with two of Mr. Russell’s originals: “Honey,” recorded by Bobby Goldsboro, which reached No. 1 on the pop chart, and “Little Green Apples,” recorded by O.C. Smith, which reached No. 2. Mr. Cason would go on to publish the early songs of Jimmy Buffett while also having his songs recorded by the disparate likes of Plácido Domingo and Bobby Vee.

In 1970, he established Creative Workshop, a recording studio in the Berry Hill neighborhood of Nashville, where, over the decades, dozens of recording venues emerged to rival those along Nashville’s Music Row. Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and the Faces, featuring Rod Stewart, recorded at Creative Workshop.

A versatile singer, Mr. Cason worked as a session vocalist throughout his career, singing jingles for Burger King and Ford and backing up Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson and John Denver.

He remained active well into the 2000s, recording several albums between 2008 and 2020 and publishing an autobiography, “Living the Rock ’n’ Roll Dream,” in 2004.

Mr. Cason is survived by his wife, Victoria (Vaughn) Cason; two daughters, Tammy and Kristy Cason, from his first marriage, to Rose Marie Whitson; another daughter, Leah Ball Steen, and two sons, Taylor and Parker, from his second marriage, to Peggy Ann Parker Ball; and nine grandchildren.

Though born and raised in proximity to country music, Mr. Cason fondly remembered his early years as a Nashville rock ’n’ roller.

“We rolled on the floor, jumped on the amps and rode on each other’s backs,” he told the weekly Nashville Scene in 1995, recalling the thrill of being onstage with the Casuals in the 1950s.

“We weren’t good musicians,” he added, “but we could do a show.”