"I Don't Want To Go On Without You" is soul ballad written by Bert Berns

Bert Berns

Bertrand Russell Berns , most commonly known as Bert Berns as well as Bert Russell and Russell Byrd, was an American songwriter and record producer of the 1960s...

 and Jerry Wexler

Jerry Wexler

Gerald "Jerry" Wexler was a music journalist turned music producer, and was regarded as one of the major record industry players behind music from the 1950s through the 1980s...

 and produced by Bert Berns

Bert Berns

Bertrand Russell Berns , most commonly known as Bert Berns as well as Bert Russell and Russell Byrd, was an American songwriter and record producer of the 1960s...

 for The Drifters

The Drifters

The Drifters are a long-lived American doo-wop and R&B/soul vocal group with a peak in popularity from 1953 to 1963, though several splinter Drifters continue to perform today. They were originally formed to serve as Clyde McPhatter's backing group in 1953...

 in 1964.

Covers

"I Don't Want To Go On Without You" has been covered by Nazareth

Nazareth (band)

Nazareth is a Scottish hard rock band, founded in 1968, that had several hits in the UK in the early 1970s, and established an international audience with their 1975 album Hair of the Dog. Perhaps their best-known hit single was a cover of the ballad "Love Hurts", in 1975...

, The Moody Blues

The Moody Blues

The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....

, The Searchers

The Searchers

The Searchers may refer to:* The Searchers , a 1956 American movie** The novel it was based on, by Alan Le May* The Searchers , a music group* The Searchers , a 2009 Iranian television show* A comic from Caliber Comics...

, Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle

Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards , better known under the stage name, Patti LaBelle, is a Grammy Award winning American singer, author and actress who has spent over 50 years in the music industry...

 and The Bluebelles, Van Morrison

Van Morrison

Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...

 and many others.

Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...

 gave an acclaimed performance of "I Don't Want To Go On Without You" on show 4 of her first television series Dusty on 8 September 1966. It has been praised as a highlight of her well-received first series. The performance was included on the Dusty Springfield DVD release Live at the BBC on 8 October 2007.

History

Originally intended to be the A-side to "Under The Boardwalk

Under the Boardwalk

"Under the Boardwalk" is a hit pop song written by Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick and recorded by The Drifters in 1964.-Premise:The lyric describes a tryst between a man and his beloved in a seaside town, who plan to privately meet "out of the sun" and out of sight from everyone else under a...

," the song was recorded in May 1964 under the direction of songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 and producer Bert Berns

Bert Berns

Bertrand Russell Berns , most commonly known as Bert Berns as well as Bert Russell and Russell Byrd, was an American songwriter and record producer of the 1960s...

. After the death of The Drifters' lead singer, Rudy Lewis, who unexpectedly died of a heroin overdose the night before, the song was led by longtime Drifters tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 Charlie Thomas

Charlie Thomas

Charlie Thomas is an American rhythm and blues singer best known for his work with The Drifters.Thomas was performing with The Five Crowns at the Apollo Theater in 1958 when George Treadwell fired his group, called The Drifters...

.