Del.icio.usThe Seekers
Fact Sheet
| Country | Australia |
| Official site | http://www.theseekerswebsite.com/ |
The Seekers were formed by Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley, who met at high school in Melbourne. Later, they met Judith Durham who had begun her career as a jazz singer in the trad jazz idiom. Just prior to joining The Seekers, she was lead vocalist in the Melbourne group Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers (she was replaced by Margret RoadKnight).
The Seekers soon gathered a strong following in Melbourne and were signed to the W&G Records by the label's A&R manager Ron Tudor, who later founded the influential Australian label Fable Records. After a brief career in Australia, the group were offered the chance to travel around the world on a cruise liner in exchange for providing on-board entertainment. They had intended to return to Australia, but they remained in the UK when the ship arrived there in early 1964. There they were discovered by songwriter-producer Tom Springfield, the brother of pop star Dusty Springfield. He produced all of their most successful records and wrote or co-wrote many of their hits.
The distinctive soprano voice of lead singer Judith Durham, their sweet harmonies, memorable songs, and non-threatening image (encouraging the BBC to give them exposure) made them appealing to a broad cross-section of the pop audience, and they enjoyed a remarkable string of Top Ten albums and singles in Britain, America and Australia between 1964 and 1968.
After signing with Lew Grade's Grade Agency and EMI's Columbia Records imprint, they released their version of Springfield's I'll Never Find Another You in November 1964. It shot to #1 in Australia and the UK, and #4 in the USA and went on to sell 1.75 million copies worldwide, making them the first Australian pop group to have a Top 5 hit in all three countries simultaneously, and the first to sell over a million copies of a single.
In 1965 they recorded a cover of Paul Simon's Someday, Oneday, which reached #4 in Australia and #11 in the UK. This was Simon's first UK success as a writer, and his first hit as a composer outside of his work with Simon & Garfunkel. Bruce Woodley also co-wrote the song Red Rubber Ball with Simon. Their chart success peaked with the movie theme song Georgy Girl, written by Jim Dale, which reached #1 on the US and Australian charts and #3 on the UK charts in 1967, and sold 3.5 million copies worldwide.
In recognition of their achievements, the group was named Australians of the Year for 1967 and in March that year they returned to Australia for a triumphant homecoming tour, which included a record-breaking concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne which was attended by over 200,000 people. This is believed to be the largest audience ever assembled for an Australian concert event. The scale of their popularity in Australia can be judged from fact that the legendary Woodstock Festival in the United States in 1969 drew about 500,000 people, and that at the time of the Seekers' Melbourne concert, Australia's population was only around 12 million people.
World Expo '88
The founding members of the Seekers, Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley, made an appearance at the closing ceremony of World Expo '88, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, with Australian soprano Julie Anthony (as their lead singer in place of Judith Durham), to sing their hit "The Carnival is Over".
The Seekers in the 1990s
The Seekers reformed, with the original lineup of Athol Guy, Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley and Judith Durham, during the 1990s and continue to tour as a nostalgia act in Australia and overseas. On 8 October, 2002 the Seekers were the topic of a special issue of Australian stamps which were released in their honour.
Paralympics
After much speculation (and a delightful send-up of the coming event by ABC TV's Olympics satire The Games) The Seekers reunited again for the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games on 29 October 2000, with a performance of "The Carnival Is Over". They were apparently approached to perform at the closing ceremony of the main games, but unfortunately an injury to Judith Durham (a broken hip) made this impossible, so the band performed at the Paralympics instead, with Judith singing from a wheelchair.