The Seekers Home Page

The Seekers: (L-R) Athol Guy, Judith Durham, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley

STOP PRESS!

The Seekers' new album, Future Road, is now available.

Click here for dates and ticket contacts for The Seekers' 1998 tour.

There is now a Judith Durham and The Seekers newsgroup, run by Saul Hazan, the former maintainer of the Judith Durham homepage. Click here to have a look.

Click here to see the new Judith Durham: The Seekers Web Page. It's still in its early stages though.

You can now read ALL The Seekers' lyrics here. Many thanks to Richard Veit, who completed the mammoth task of transcribing all the songs, and to Gordon Weir, who sent me many sets of lyrics in the early days of this page. The lyrics page isn't properly formatted yet, but is in alphabetical order (more or less).

The Seekers, as we know them, were formed in 1962, when Judith Durham, a young jazz singer, met Athol Guy, who sang and played bass in a folk trio called The Seekers with Bruce Woodley and Keith Potger. Judith was invited to join the boys that night, in a coffee bar in South Yarra called the Treble Clef. The trio went through their repertoire, and Judith joined in and improvised, creating the distinctive sound which would bring them so much success over the next few years.

Judith continued to sing with jazz bands in Melbourne, whilst also finding time for jobs with The Seekers, who made an audition tape in 1963. Judith added harmonies, and jazz and gospel influences, to the boys' existing folk repertoire, in songs such as "South Australia" and "Waltzing Matilda", which was released as a single in Australia. The group also found new material, especially gospel songs such as "This Train", "Children Go Where I Send You" and "Kumbaya".

By this time, Judith had attracted the interest of W&G Records. When they asked her to submit tapes of her singing, she gave them the group's audition tape, which resulted in The Seekers being signed to W&G, as well as Judith being offered her own jazz EP.

The Seekers' first album, Introducing The Seekers, which was enthusiastically received, was based around re-recordings of their audition tracks, plus four other songs. The group also recorded their own novelty song, "Myra", as a single. They were then booked for a trip to the UK, to entertain passengers on a cruise liner. Hoping to find some work in London during their 10-week visit, Athol sent a copy of their album in advance to the Grade Organisation.

Sure enough, when the group arrived in Britain on May 21st 1964, they found that a Grade Organisation agent, Eddie Jarrett, had indeed found some work for them. This proved to be their big break. Within two days, The Seekers appeared on the Tonight Show on BBC TV, and a few days later appeared in Blackpool, supporting Freddie and the Dreamers. They soon became regular guests on "Call in on Carroll", a popular Friday night TV programme, and were offered an album deal with the World Record Club.

This album, entitled simply The Seekers, was so well received that the group was immediately offered another album by the WRC. This next album, Hide And Seekers", included several solos for Judith, as well as a cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind".

On November 4th 1964, The Seekers recorded "I'll Never Find Another You" by Tom Springfield at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, and the record was released a month later. This soon reached the Top 40, and by the beginning of 1965 was attracting considerable airplay and climbing rapidly up the charts. By February, it knocked The Kinks' "Tired Of Waiting For You" off the No. 1 position to top the UK charts. The record also reached No. 1 in Australia and No. 3 in the USA, selling almost two million copies.

This was followed by another Tom Springfield song, "A World Of Our Own", which soon reached No. 1 in Britain, No. 2 in Australia and No. 15 in the USA. Soon the group released another album, A World Of Our Own (released as simply "The Seekers" in Australia). The same year, The Seekers had their third No. 1 single, "The Carnival Is Over", again by Tom Springfield. At its peak, this sold over 90,000 copies a day!

1966 saw the group's first visit to New Zealand, and their second Australian tour. They also released two more singles, "Someday One Day" by Paul Simon, and "Walk With Me" by Tom Springfield. During a five-week UK tour, the group worked on their second EMI album, Come The Day, which reached the Top 5 in Britain by the end of the year. They also re-recorded "Morningtown Ride" as their 1966 Christmas single, which became their fourth No. 1 hit. This was in fact a re-recording (for copyright reasons) of the song which had originally appeared on the "Hide and Seekers" album for the WRC.

Early in 1967, Capitol Records released "Come The Day" in the USA under the title of "Georgy Girl", and released the title track separately as a single. In February this reached No. 1, making The Seekers the first Australian group to top the US charts. "Georgy Girl" was also released as a single in the UK and Australia, where it reached No. 2 in the charts. The group undertook a third Australian tour in March, followed by a season at the London Palladium. After representing Australia at Expo '67 in Montreal, the group returned to London to record another album, this time in the Olympic Studios. When this was finished, they completed their first US tour, before returning to England for the release of the album, Seekers Seen In Green on November 1st 1967. This reached No. 15 in the UK charts, and no songs from it were released as singles. 1967's Christmas single was "Emerald City" by Kim Fowley and John Martin, which reached only No. 50. It finally emerged during the group's 1993 reunion tour that John Martin was in fact none other than their very own Keith Potger. He had written the song with Kim Fowley under a nom-de-plume, as he did not want the rest of the group to feel obliged to record it just for his sake.

1968 began with a tour of Australia and new Zealand, during which Judith announced to the rest of the group that she would be leaving The Seekers in the summer. The group bowed out with a week-long season at The Talk Of The Town in London, and the release of a live record,The Seekers Live At The Talk Of The Town. The Seekers' last appearance together in the 60s was an hour-long BBC TV show, "Farewell The Seekers" on July 9th 1968.

After their split, EMI released a compilation entitled "The Best Of The Seekers", which became their first No. 1 album and remained in the UK Top 40 for almost three years.

The Seekers re-formed in 1993 for a 25th anniversary reunion tour, in which they played over 100 concerts in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, singing together for the first time since their split in 1968.