A World of Their Own | The Seekers

MYF WARHURST: Hi I’m Myf Warhurst broadcaster and music buff. Well, it’s 25 years ago this month that the very first episode of Australian Story aired. And so we thought, why not celebrate with an encore screening of one our most popular programs. The Seekers have been around longer than this show. In fact, nearly 60 years and they blazed a trail for bands that followed. Tonight they talk candidly about the impact of sudden fame, share their treasure trove of home movies and reveal the pain behind their sudden split.

BERT NEWTON, TELEVISION PERSONALITY: The Seekers came into my life in the, early 60s they had a sound which was unique. In any area of show business, people who are not like anyone else, they’re the ones who deserve to succeed.

IAN MACRAE, DISC JOCKEY: The Seekers flew the flag for Australian music. They were the first major group to make it big in the UK and I think it made people aware of the fact that Australia did have actually a music industry.

ED SULLIVAN: So let’s give The Seekers a very cordial American welcome let’s really hear it for them

BOBBY LIMB: The fabulous Seekers

UPSOT: There’s a new world somewhere

they call the promised land

JUDITH DURHAM: I don’t think we truly understood that we’d sort of conquered the charts to the extent we had, rivalling The Beatles.

ATHOL GUY: Our second single knocked The Beatles Ticket To Ride off the top of the charts.

JUDITH DURHAM: And because we’d had the Georgy Girl hit the press absolutely saw us as international stars

Hey there Georgy Girl there’s another Georgy deep inside.

BRUCE WOODLEY: It wasn’t plain sailing, along the way there’s the usual disagreements or tensions that any group of four very different people are going to have, and they produced moments of great drama at times,And certainly for me it’s a story of great redemption, it’s just a very human story

ATHOL GUY: We’re having a little celebration today for Keith’s birthday, it’s about 3 years since we’ve all been together

JUDITH DURHAM: And to have the four of us all together is quite remarkable

KEITH POTGER: I think there’s been, a, an indefinable bond between Judith, Athol, Bruce and me.

ATHOL GUY: Wehey it’s the cake man 

JUDITH DURHAM: fantastic

ATHOL GUY: How lovely to see you all

KEITH POTGER: because we have, been through so many, experiences.

ATHOL, JUDITH, BRUCE:Happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear Keith

BRUCE WOODLEY: I think about my time with The Seekers in the ’60s as being quite surreal. It was a bit hard to take it all in.

ATHOL GUY: You remember this car here  BRUCE WOODLEY: Oh I do, I do

ATHOLGUY: My pride and joy

JUDITH DURHAM: What is it

ATHOLGUY: DB 5 Aston Martin

JUDITH DURHAM: Aston Martin Well you don’t look any different Athol except you’ve got no hair otherwise

ATHOL GUY: I have no doubt that the thing that brought us together was the individual experience that we’d all had as kids growing up in Melbourne, out of the war years.

ATHOL GUY: Hey

JUDITH DURHAM: That’s incredible, you’d be struggling to get me up there now

ATHOL GUY: Where music was the most uplifting thing you could get hold of.

JUDITH DURHAM: My first memories of music really were both singing and piano, You know, harmony around the piano with grandma. But I’d play piano for the girls to march in at school.

BEVERLEY SHEEHAN, JUDITH’S SISTER: I just knew from a very young age that Judy was most likely going to have a musical career and by the time she was nine, she said to me, “I’m going to be famous, and I’m going to sing on all the stages around the world.”

BERT NEWTON, TELEVISION PERSONALITY: Australia back in the 50s and 60s was a very different Australia a very important part of the entertainment at that time were the jazz clubs.

JUDITH DURHAM: My Sister Beverley and I both, we were frequenting the trad jazz clubs around Melbourne.

and I went up and asked a band if I could sing with them. And it was quite late in the night and they said, “Oh, well come back next week.”

BEVERLEY SEEHAN, JUDITH’S SISTER: We did go back next week she was up on the stage. I thought, “Wow, she’s done it.”

And so, from then on, they offered her a weekly job singing with the band.

UPSOT:That slide trombone la la

ATHOL GUY: Keith and I got talking. He had a group and we shared a love of similar music and we formed a group called The Escorts four boys

BERT NEWTON:Our own Escorts they sing a few bars

BERT NEWTON, TELEVISION PERSONALITY: The early 60s was the golden time for television. Primarily because the biggest thing on television was variety.

KEITH POTGER: The Escorts kind of morphed into The Seekers, we started doing some folk songs

Ken Ray, uh, when he decided to get married and leave the group, instead of looking around for a bloke, uh, we looked around for a girl

JUDITH DURHAM [SINGING]:This Train don’t carry no extras this train this train don’t carry no extras this train

KEITH POTGER: Well, when I first heard Judith Durham sing, I was absolutely knocked out. She was one of those voices that you could, identify straight away.

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]:This train is bound for glory this train

BERT NEWTON, TELEVISION PERSONALITY: She was a girl with a wonderful voice, that made The Seekers a totally different band

BRUCE WOODLEY: In 1964, Athol organised a trip for us on a ship called the Fair Sky to England and our deal was that we would play on board the boat and stay there in England for ten weeks and return back to Australia

JUDITH DURHAM: I don’t think I would’ve gone if I’d thought it was going to be more than 10 weeks. I was very much with my parents and I wasn’t intending to leave home for a long time and I wasn’t geared up for it.

BEVERLEY SHEEHAN, SISTER: Our parents, they were quite worried, really, about her leaving with three boys, because she was only about probably 19 then.

KEITH POTGER: We were in total wonderment, suddenly we were in this incredible country. London at that time was the swinging music capital of the whole universe, you know. There were The Beatles here, The Rolling Stones there, The Kinks, uh, all sort of solo artists, Dusty Springfield.

BRUCE WOODLEY: Here’s us as a straight Australian folk group, I guess we were so different we were outrageous in our own way.

JUDITH DURHAM: My trend-setting idol was the Queen. So I’d have my matching handbag and matching gloves So, you know, I was not at all tuned into Carnaby Street.

KEITH POTGER: And, suddenly – we found that we were right in the thick of it, because, uh, we- we started working pretty much, uh, as soon as we got off the ship.

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: My swag all on my shoulder that billy in my  hand

JUDITH DURHAM: So this was so unexpected. And I had to ring my parents and say, “Oh gosh, I’m not coming back.”

I thought I’d perhaps go back to piano and my singing still. It was all sort of unfulfilled thoughts that I’d had. So it was a big thing to say, “Right, I’m gonna be a full-time Seeker”

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: I made a fortune in a day

BRUCE WOODLEY: We recorded a number of songs from our early days in Australia, but there really wasn’t a lot of interest at that time.

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: Like a true born native man (applause)

BRUCE WOODLEY: I think we needed something different musically and that was where the connection with Tom Springfield was made

THE SPRINFIELDS [SINGING]:Try to forget you

BRUCE WOODLEY: Tom had a great understanding of what the group could achieve vocally, musically he’d had that experience with his own group, with his sister Dusty, called ‘The Springfields’, who had a not dissimilar sound

THE SPRINFIELDS [SINGING]:on the island of dreams

ATHOL GUY: Tom came round to meet us all, which was fabulous and then on a little piece of paper had written out the lyrics to I’ll Never Find Another You.

THE SPRINFIELDS [SINGING]:There’s a new world somewherethey call the promised land

JUDITH DURHAM: Abbey Road in those days, there was an upstairs and downstairs. And in the downstairs, huge studio, is where The Beatles would record. So we recorded ‘I’ll Never Find Another You ‘in that studio on the ground floor.

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: For I know I’ll never find another you

RICHARD LUSH, RECORDING ENGINEER: I was lucky enough to work with the Beatles, The Seekers, Cliff and the Shadows

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: I could search the whole world over

RICHARD LUSH, RECORDING ENGINEER: What made the Seekers different I think was their blend of voices

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: But I know I’ll never find another you

RICHARD LUSH, RECORDING ENGINEER: The Seekers was a new sound and people go ‘wow’ what’s that

BRUCE WOODLEY: We had Keith singing the high tenor part. He was lot of the time, slightly sharp, hope he won’t mind me saying that. I was the next voice down, the baritone, slightly under the note

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: I don’t know what I’d do

Judith singing melody in a clear, tuneful voice, and Athol, always very tuneful down in the bottom end with the bass. Together, it produced a very unique, edgy vocal sound that not a lot of people could duplicate.

RICHARD LUSH, RECORDING ENGINEER: Judith was I think a perfectionist so she wanted her vocal to be absolutely right and if that didn’t happen or she wasn’t happy I think she used to get upset.

JUDITH DURHAM: All of us have our ideas about how a song works and music should go so very often I’d want to say oh no I really think it should it go like this. I’d drive the boys potty as I still do today I think

KEITH POTGER: Judith always felt upset that there was a flat note in ‘I’ll never find another you’ and we would jibe her about it but as I say we all felt stressed in our recording career

ANNOUNCER: This is Radio Caroline on 199, England’s first commercial radio station

IAN MACRAE, DISC JOCKEY: Well, The Seekers had just recorded I’ll Never Find Another You but they couldn’t get, anyone to hear it because the BBC would not play songs until they became hits. There was no commercial radio in the UK so The Seekers got their start  through pirate radio because nobody else would play their songs

ATHOL GUY: We were at EMI’s offices and the door just about crashed off its hinges as the team out there came in shouting, “You’re number one, you’re number one, you’re number one.” And we went we’re number one how did we do that?

BRUCE WOODLEY: Well the success of that record led to Eddie Jarrett, our manager, coming to us and saying ‘we’ve got a four year record deal with EMI in the offing’, and that we should seriously do it

JUDITH DURHAM: So I thought, “This doesn’t seem like a good enough deal.” You know it was a very low royalty and anyway I was a bit distraught at the time cause I didn’t really feel comfortable about signing the contract. For me four years felt like a long long time.

ATHOL GUY: There is no doubt that in those days you never got anything out of your first contract and that’s what happened to us. So you had to wait for the second contract to get the bonus

BRUCE WOODLEY: The pressure was always on after the first hit to come up with another one.

ATHOL GUY:We’d like to sing for you now a song (which we hope will be nearly as successful as I’ll never find another you And that’s a song written for us by Tom Springfield released last Friday and it’s called ‘A World of Our Own’

ATHOL GUY: Just after I’ll Never Find Another You The New Musical Express announced that The Seekers had been named the top best new group, which was fantastic, because the group that won it the year before was The Rolling Stones and the group that won it the year before them was The Beatles

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: We’ll build a world of our own that no one else can share

JUDITH DURHAM: and of course we went to the big poll winners’ concert. So, Rolling Stones were on, The Beatles, there we were, little Seekers, I mean, blimey. And there I am in my homemade dress, you know? It’s classic, isn’t it?

MC OF CONCERT: And here are the world’s greatest …screams …The Beatles

ATHOL GUY: We were in our dressing rooms on the day of the concert and Eddie our manager was standing outside the dressing room and John Lennon walked across to him with a very cheeky grin on his face, and said, “They’re not a band little band you know, but they’re all here to see us.” Things worked out pretty well, we evened the score by knocking Ticket To Ride off the top of the charts.

BRUCE WOODLEY: Our first tour back in Australia was phenomenal and the streets were just lined with people everywhere we went.

BERT NEWTON, TELEVISION PERSONALITY: People in Australia who thought that we’re second class in most things, all of a sudden they saw a group of Australians have success the likes of which we’d not seen before.

REPORTER: How did you all feel when you knocked The Beatles off the top of the popularity charts.

KEITH POTGER: ”Oh they were pretty tired mate, they’d been there for 5 or 6 weeks

JUDITH DURHAM: it was pretty heavy going because we had to do all the interviews and do the shows and everything.

REPORTER: Do you think the time will ever come when Australian artists don’t have to go to Europe to be recognised

JUDITH DURHAM:I think eventually 10 or even 20 years’ time I should imagine Australian is going to expand so much that showbusiness life must expand too

JUDITH DURHAM: We finished in Australia, and then we went on to America. Yeah. So there was hardly time, though, to appreciate what was happening.

ATHOL GUY: After we arrived back in London, we had a 16 week, summer season in Bournemouth. Sadly, Judith came down with an illness.

JUDITH DURHAM: It had been such a whirlwind coming back the very next day started rehearsals  nothing felt right and I just felt embarrassed and awkward about everything. I had been suffering from nervous exhaustion but nobody sort of knew that at this time and so it was pretty heavy going and uh  so anyway I was they said I needed five weeks rest

BRUCE WOODLEY: I think the initial success and the constant media attention, I think it got all a bit much for Judith.

ATHOL GUY: A hell of a challenge being the front girl in a group. Easy for the three blokes, quite easy for us

JUDITH DURHAM: I was very uncomfortable in my body I was always wondering what was I gonna do about my weight. And in fact, I went and spoke to a plastic surgeon, ’cause I thought I needed a bust reduction operation. I asked that same doctor could you also take some, I want higher cheeks. So you know, ’cause when I was a child  I used to sit in the cinema and draw me cheeks in you know to hoping they’d stay in. So I was so self conscious.

KEITH POTGER: While we were at the uh, at the Pavilion in Bournemouth, during that long season, um, Tom had been um, working on other material.

[TOM SPRINGFIELD sings Carnival is Over in Russian]

KEITH POTGER: Tom always had a um lovely way of presenting his demos.

TOM SPRINGFIELD: Volga Volga matra

BRUCE WOODLEY: It was so different to the other songs, based on a Russian folk tune

TOM SPRINGFIELD: Say goodbye my own true lover

JUDITH DURHAM [SINGING]: Say Good bye my own true lover as we sing our lovers song

JUDITH DURHAM: I absolutely loved the Carnival is Over. It was so emotional

JUDITH DURHAM [SINGING]: to leave you  

at that time on the cover of Vogue there was a pair of leather, white leather boots I said to myself, I’m gonna buy those boots if we get to number one Of course, it went to number one, and I bought me boots, so that was good

JUDITH DURHAM [SINGING]: For The Carnival is Over we may never meet again

IAN MACRAE, DISC JOCKEY: After 18 months The Seekers had chalked up three number one hits with their first three singles that was amazing that was unheard of and there was more to come

UPSOT: Georgy Georgy come and play with us come on.

ATHOL GUY: Our next hit song was really going to come out of left field, because it came from a request from some film producers who were putting a mover together called Georgy Girl. And they wanted The Seekers to record the title track

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: Hey there Georgy Girl swinging down the street so fancy free

KEITH POTGER: The story of the film is about a- a girl who is really pretty unsure of herself and a bit introspective

Song: Hey there Georgy Girl look at all the boyfriends you don’t get

JUDITH DURHAM: I so much related to her because she was so body conscious and washed her hair out in the ladies room because she wasn’t happy with how the hairdresser had done it. It was really so much I related to

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: There’s another Georgy deep inside

BRUCE WOODLEY: It was just extremely well written, It became a huge hit in America

UPSOT:This is the number one song

KEITH POTGER: The Academy Awards had been announced, and the song “Georgy Girl” was nominated. But the award ceremony happened at precisely the same time as were doing the pantomime in Bristol

BRUCE WOODLEY: We tried to get out of the contract but they just wouldn’t let us out of it. That was hugely disappointing to us.

MITZI GAYNOR:A new Georgy Girl, A new Georgy Girl

ATHOL GUY: Anyway, Mitzi Gaynor, God bless her, stepped up to the plate to sing the song, and it wasn’t exactly as you’d probably want Georgy Girl to be sung, but that was Mitzi.

[applause]

BILL PEACH: First the Seekers and their one-hour colour special. Here are the seekers making their film on location at the Sydney Opera House.  

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: People say you’re a dreamer what do they know of what you’re thinking

BRUCE WOODLEY: 1967 was a very big year for us. When we were there on the opera house site it was just building materials and rubble everywhere.

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: Some Day one day time not so far away  we can share the dream

ATHOL GUY: We won the accolade of Australians Of The Year, which was an incredible honour. We got to meet up with John Gorton, then Prime Minister and his wife Bettina, and spent a great day at the lodge in Canberra with them. We were to do a Music For The People concert at the Myer Music Bowl

[applause]

BRUCE WOODLEY: Well before we went out on stage for that concert we were told there was massive crowds, we had no idea.

UPSOT: I know that one day soon the sun shall rise

BERT NEWTON, TELEVISION PERSONALITY: If you could imagine, a concert by The Seekers drew 200,000 people, and when it was included in their television special, the ratings for that night broke a record which has never been achieved again

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: I can’t seem to get much sleep any old night

BRUCE WOODLEY: I had no real idea of the future at that point. I was thinking that it could go on for some long time, there was no real thought that things might change in the near future.

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: You taught me to understand

JUDITH DURHAM: I was always receiving requests to go solo. I was wondering when will my time with the band come to an end. It was a safety net we could have gone on and on and on and I was just thinking I really have to do something to make a move. I found that artistically I wasn’t quite on the same page as the boys. For me it was quite difficult to, if things weren’t done .to perfection I remember we were in New Zealand and the curtain was drawn and weren’t readyand I just really felt, “Oh look, I really feel I just need to just do my own thing

BRUCE WOODLEY: LookI knew Judith had aspirations to being a solo performer at some point, I just never knew it was so far advanced in her thinking at the time. I was quite taken aback by it actually. I was disappointed not only for myself but for the group because the group could have gone on for years at that level and developed musically. So that spelt the end of a lot of aspirations for me.

ATHOL GUY: It’s not something you welcome with open arms you don’t go wow ‘we’re breaking up’

BRUCE WOODLEY: And at that time, we were going to be offered, a new contract with EMI that would have meant a lot to us financially as well, so that never happened.

ATHOL GUY: Well, the timing was pretty bad in terms of us getting that huge bonus that we would’ve picked up in terms of our second contract.

JUDITH DURHAM: I was grateful to be out of obligation. It was pretty hard because we were offered serious, like it was a big contract .It was a big, big thing to make that decision. And for me money has never been the object.

BRUCE WOODLEY: So my whole life changed within a matter of days, and the Seekers days were over for me.

ATHOL GUY:And that is from all of us very very sincerelythank you thank youvery very much and goodbye because I am afraid Tonight the Carnival really is over

KEITH POTGER: We went into the BBC studios and recorded the farewell concert

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: Though the carnival is over I will love you till I die

ATHOL GUY: They had over 10 million people viewing. The feeling of our fans was one of devastation, despair. How could they do this? Very hard to just simply explain.Yeah, always hard to explain. It’s just a moment that you come to accept, and you move on.

THE SEEKERS [SINGING]: I’d Like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony

ATHOL GUY: We all sort of picked ourselves up. Keith started another group which really didn’t need to be called The New Seekers

BRUCE WOODLEY: And I do remember at the time not feeling that positive about it and Keith knows this. But we weren’t about to go suing one of our mates

KEITH POTGER: I don’t think, initially they were all that thrilled, but the fact that we came up with uh, with a stonking great group was, um, it was the best way that we could keep The Seekers name alive.

VOICE: And here’s our host Athol Guy

IAN MACRAE: Athol went on to host a tv quiz show and then he became a state member of parliament for the Liberal party and won three elections in a row

IAN MACRAE: Bruce Woodley pursued his song writing career and wrote the classic song I am Australian

Music: I am you are we are Australian

JUDITH DURHAM: Oh won’t you come along with me

IAN MACRAE: Judith married musician Ron Edgeworth and pursued a solo career as a jazz singer

Song: Down to New Orleans

IAN MACRAE: Despite their individual successes I don’t believe  they were ever as good as when they combined those voices

Music: Where old friends always meet

BRUCE WOODLEY: I wrote a letter to Judith years after we broke up because I didn’t feel easy in my heart about carrying feelings of resentment particularly towards Judith I just wanted her to know, from my point of view, how much that breakup had affected me and caused me a lot of hurt.

JUDITH DURHAM: And I couldn’t believe what he was saying, and I never thought for a million years that they would have thought that I turned my back on them, you know, I’d given notice to them, but I thought everybody was feeling fine!

COMPERE: Judith what happened to The Seekers Judy?

JUDITH: Well I think they’re still going with different kinds of members in them, been on and off for all the years since I left

ATHOL GUY: Out of the blue, fate steps in and pushes you into a point where you, really, you need to connect with your friends again

REPORTER: Judith Durham one of Australia’s first singing superstars will survive the fatal car crash that killed a woman passenger in the other car

KEITH POTGER: In 1990, Judith and her husband Ron Edgeworth were involved in a terrible car accident that was not their fault. That was the starting point I suppose. We all got together and had a bit of a dinner and chatted about old times etc

JUDITH DURHAM: It was so great to see the boys, of course when we walked in, big hugs, all of us. And when I saw Bruce, I just said to him, “Look, I’m really sorry if I’ve ever hurt you.”

BRUCE WOODLEY: And I thought, “What an incredibly brave thing to say.” And I told her that, and I said, “You know what? The moment you said that to me, it was all gone.

ATHOL GUY: And then the idea came up that we hadn’t been together for 25 years so we should have a silver jubilee reunion concertand we thought we’d better sit down and have a bit of a sing along make sure we could still do it in the manner that everyone had become accustomed to years before.

DORON KIPEN, RECORDING ENGINEER: And they wanted a studio a low profile studio that they could come to and just test the waters

UPSOT: Keith the olden goldies the golden oldies la bamba chatter chatter

DORON KIPEN, RECORDING ENGINEER: Certainly a little tentative tentative in every regard

ATHOL GUY: You’re joking

SEEKERS [SINGING]: There’s a new world somewhere they call the promised land

DORON KIPEN, RECORDING ENGINEER: It was an extraordinary moment because it was the first time those four voices had come together to sing in a generation

SEEKERS [SINGING]: I still need you there beside me no matter what I do

DORON KIPEN, RECORDING ENGINEER: I was a witness to a moment of Australian music history

KEITH POTGER: And I’ve got to tell you, it was like, uh, we hadn’t been apart for 25 years. It was just a wonderful thing.

SEEKERS [SINGING]:’We’ll build a world of our own that no one else can share, all our sorrows we’ll leave far behind us there

KEITH POTGER: In 1993 we started our silver jubilee tour. We ended up doing 120 concerts

UPSOT: Audience applause and cheers

BRUCE WOODLEY: It was just extraordinary when we walk out on stage and just stand there, and people would just applaud for five, six minutes.

ATHOL GUY: For 25 years now since ’93, because the phones keep ringing, we’ve done 4 or 5 other tours

We knew that we were getting towards the golden mark, the 50 years

SEEKERS [SINGING]: Loving you has shown me the colours of my life

JUDITH DURHAM: We wanted to celebrate it because the fact that we were all still alive after 50 years was so amazing.

JUDITH DURHAM: I doubt if there’ll even be another reunion. But I think that the fans themselves, even when we last went to the Royal Albert Hall concert the fans were saying goodbye.

SEEKERS [SINGING]: Like a drum my heard was beating and your kiss was sweet as wine

KEITH POTGER: I’d like the Seekers to be remembered as, um, as a group who brought some joy and light into people’s lives, while at the same time having a lot of fun together.

SEEKERS [SINGING]: For Pierrot and Columbine

BRUCE WOODLEY: I hope our music, over the years, has given people a sense of place and belonging

SEEKERS [SINGING]: This will be our last goodbye

ATHOL GUY: I don’t want us to be remembered in any particular way. I just want us to be remembered. And the music to be treasured. And I hope it’s going to be out there for a long, long time.

SEEKERS [SINGING]: Though the carnival is over I will love you till I die