Several years previously, Lonnie Donegan had written and recorded a song called I’ll Never Fall In Love Again. Now he was touring with Welsh singing star Tom Jones. They became friends and, as Jones himself describes it, "One night he [Lonnie] said: 'Look, I have this song, you’d sing the pants off it. I’ve recorded it, but I can’t really sing it. It’s a sort of a rewrite of a song from the Thirties when the Depression was going on, called I’m Never Going To Cease My Wandering’” (from The Mail on Sunday).
Jones was smitten and recorded the number for release as a single on Decca F.12639 in 1967:
Rather than the single version, here’s a great live performance from that same year:
Elvis Presley liked Tom Jones. They met and got on well together (hey, Tom’s from the Valleys). Did Tom suggest that Elvis sing the song, or had Elvis heard it somewhere else? Who knows? Whatever, Elvis recorded it…