Sunday History Photo / Au

The Seekers are an Australian quartet folk music-influenced pop music group which was originally formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were the first Australian popular music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States. They were popular during the 1960s with their best-known configuration with Judith Durham on vocals, piano and tambourine; Athol Guy on double bass and vocals, Keith Potger on twelve-string guitar, banjo and vocals, and Bruce Woodley on guitar, mandolin, banjo and vocals.



The group had top 10 hits in the 1960s with "I'll Never Find Another You", "A World of Our Own", "Morningtown Ride", and "The Carnival Is Over" which the Seekers have sung at various closing ceremonies in Australia, including World Expo 88 and the Paralympics and still stands as the 30th best selling song in the United Kingdom,
In 1968. As from 2004, the Seekers have sold over 50 million records.
The Seekers were offered a twelve-month position as on-board entertainment on the Sitmar cruise liner, Fairsky, in March 1964. In May, they travelled to the UK and had intended to return to Australia after staying ten weeks, but upon arrival they were offered work by a London booking agency, the Grade Organisation. They signed with World Record Club and issued a single, "Myra" which was co-written by the group. The group regularly appeared on a UK TV series
After filling in on a bill headlined by Dusty Springfield, they met her brother, songwriter and producer Tom Springfield, who had experience with folk-pop material with the siblings' earlier group the Springfields. He penned "I'll Never Find Another You", which they recorded in November 1964. It was released by EMI Records, on their Columbia label, in December and was championed by the offshore radio station Radio Caroline. Despite the fact that the group had not signed a contract with EMI, the single reached the UK Top 40 and began selling well. In February 1965, it reached No. 1 in the UK and Australia, and No. 4 in the United States where it was released on EMI's Capitol label. "I'll Never Find Another You" was the biggest selling single in the UK for 1965 and went on to sell 1.75 million copies worldwide.
The Seekers were the first Australian pop group to have a top 5 hit in all three countries – Australia, UK and US, The distinctive soprano voice of Durham, the group's harmonies and memorable songs encouraged the UK media, including the BBC, to give them exposure, allowing them to appeal to a broad cross-section of the pop audience.
In March 1967, the Seekers returned to Australia for a homecoming tour, which included a performance at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, attended by an estimated audience of 200,000. Guinness Book of World Records (1968) listed it as the greatest attendance at a concert in the Southern Hemisphere.





In January 1968, on Australia Day, in recognition of its achievements, the group was named joint Australians of the Year the only group to have this honour bestowed upon it. They personally accepted their awards from Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia, during their tour. During this visit, the group filmed another TV special, The World of the Seekers, which was screened in cinemas before being screened nationally on Channel 9 to high ratings and is in the Top 10 most watched TV shows of the 20th century in Australia.

In July 1968, Judith announced that she was leaving the Seekers to pursue a solo career and the group disbanded. Their final performance, on 7 July, was screened live by the BBC as a special called Farewell the Seekers, with an audience of more than 10 million viewers. The special had been preceded by a week-long season at London's Talk of the Town nightclub and a live recording of one of their shows was released as a live LP record, The Seekers Say Goodbye Live from the Talk of the Town. It reached No. 2 on the UK charts. Also in July, the compilation album The Seekers' Greatest Hits was released and spent 17 weeks at No. 1 in Australia. It was re-titled as The Best of the Seekers in the UK and spent one week at No. 1 in February 1969, managing to knock the Beatles' off the top of the charts and preventing the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet from reaching the top spot. The album spent 125 weeks in the charts in the UK.



Following the Seekers' split, Judith pursued a solo career. She released a Christmas album called For Christmas with Love and later signed with A&M Records, releasing more albums including, A Gift of Song and Climb Ev'ry Mountain. Guy hosted his own TV show in Australia, A Guy Called Athol, before entering politics in 1973. In 1969, Potger formed and managed another group, the New Seekers in the UK, which were more pop-oriented. Bruce Woodley released several solo albums and focused on songwriting, including co-writing the patriotic song "I Am Australian" with Dobe Newton (of the Bushwackers) in 1987.

From 1972, Guy, Potger and Woodley planned on reforming the Seekers without Durham. By 1975 they had recruited Louisa Wisseling, a semi-professional folk singer formerly with Melbourne group the Settlers. They had a top 10 Australian hit with the Woodley-penned "The Sparrow Song". Woodley left the group in June 1977 and was replaced by Buddy England, a former 1960s pop singer and member of the Mixtures. In 1978, Guy was replaced by Peter Robinson (ex-Strangers) and the group issued an album, All Over the World in November. In 1988, Guy, Potger and Woodley reformed the Seekers with Julie Anthony, a popular cabaret singer. In May, the group sang "The Carnival Is Over" at the World Expo 88 in Brisbane. In April 1989, the group re-recorded some of their earlier work for The Seekers Live On, which peaked in the top 30 on the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Albums Chart. In June 1990, Anthony left and was replaced by Karen Knowles, a former teen pop singer on Young Talent Time. However the unique timbre of Judith Durham's voice was missing from their sound and the group split again.
In May 1990, after an Australian tour, Durham and Edgeworth were badly injured in a car accident outside Melbourne, which put Judith out of action for over a year. She returned to recording and performance in late 1991 and Polygram issued her new single, "Australia, Land of Today" in January 1992. To mark the opening of the Melbourne Cricket Ground's Great Southern Stand later that year, Judith performed the song before 100,000 people at the World Cup Cricket final.

The Seekers reunited late in 1992, with the classic line-up of Durham, Guy, Potger and Woodley. In March 1992, all four met up at a restaurant in Toorak for the first time in twenty years. During that time they never spoke of reforming, they just wanted to get to know each other again. It was two months later they decided to do a reunion. A 25-Year Silver Jubilee Reunion Celebration tour in 1993 was sufficiently successful that the group remained together for a further 11 years. They staged several sell-out tours of Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The reformed group issued more albums, including new studio albums Future Road in November 1997 (which peaked at No. 4 on the ARIA Albums Chart) and Morningtown Ride to Christmas (which reached the top 20 in 2001).
And this year marks the 50th year of The Seekers with a tour planned.




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