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Sunday, September 8, 2013

The Seekers...A's B's and EP's


Okay, so The Seekers were not exactly rock and roll, but they did dominate the music charts in the mid to late sixties with their infectious folk-pop sound. They appealed to listeners both young and old and were Australia's biggest musical export of the time. The soaring harmonies, the acoustic instrumentation and Judith Durham's angelic voice combined to produce a sound that was impossible to ignore.

They originally formed in Melbourne in 1962 and were the first Australian pop 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 as: 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", "Someday, One Day", "Georgy Girl" (the title song of the film of the same name), and "The Carnival Is Over" (their rendition of a Russian folk song which the Seekers have sung at various closing ceremonies in Australia, including World Expo 88 and the Paralympics, and is still in the top 50 best-selling singles in the UK). Australian music historian Ian McFarlane described their style as "concentrated on a bright, uptempo sound, although they were too pop to be considered strictly folk and too folk to be rock."

In 1968, they were named as joint Australians of the Year – the only group thus honoured. In July of that year, Durham left to pursue a solo career and the group disbanded. The band has reformed periodically, and in 1995 they were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. "I'll Never Find Another You" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's Sounds of Australia registry in 2011. Woodley's and Dobe Newton's song "I Am Australian", which was recorded by the Seekers, and by Durham with Russell Hitchcock and Mandawuy Yunupingu, has become an unofficial Australian anthem. As from 2004, the Seekers have sold over fifty million records.

This 24 track compilation of their hits, including B sides, is one of the better collections of their output and is presented in glorious MONO!



                                       

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