When Music Sounded Like Music

Ramsey Seikaly

Los Angeles -- When you think of the 1960's, almost a half a century ago, what comes to mind are the images of the young students protesting the war in Vietnam, President Kennedy's assassination, the "I Have A Dream" speech of Dr. Martine Luther King, Jr. on the east capitol lawn in the summer of 1963 on the mall in Washington, D.C., and yes the music oh the music of Peter Paul and Mary singing the folk tunes of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, Joan Baez on her guitar, Jimi Hendrix and his guitar, Simon and Garfunckel, The Doors, The Rolling Stones and of course who can ever forget the gran daddy of them all, The Beatles.  It was the music and its melodious harmonies and syncopated rolling beats that defined a generation's identity through gut wrenching lyrics and fantastically rhythmic tunes.  

There was another group, however, who exploded on the music scene in the early part of the decade whose music was unbelievably good and whose songs whether written by them or others were presented with such skill and mastery that you wondered when you saw them perform or heard them sing whether they really owned these tunes or whether they were from another world.  

Indeed they were from another world.  The Seekers as they were known with their lead singer, Judith Durham, who passed away, along with Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley, hailing from down under, Melbourne Australia, would rival the Beatles in style, harmony and lyrics that epitomized the hubris and psyche of the post war youth generation. 

According to Wikipedia: "They were the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States. 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" (written by Paul Simon), "Georgy Girl" (the title song of the film of the same name), and "The Carnival Is Over" (their rendition of aRussian 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. With "I'll Never Find Another You" and "Georgy Girl", the band also achieved success in the United States, but not nearly at the same level as in the rest of the world. As of 2004, the Seekers have sold over fifty million records worldwide."

You may know them through this song that was the lead in to the hit movie of the same name: GEORGY GIRL starring a young Lynn Redgrave.  Here then are the Seekers!

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