Judith Durham & The Seekers Tribute - News Day (Sky News 2022)
Features: Athol Guy from The Seekers.
Features: Athol Guy from The Seekers.
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00Their timeless tunes are adored by millions.
00:09The Seekers first shot to stardom in the 1960s
00:12and were quickly celebrated all over the world thanks to this hit.
00:22The band became the first Australian group to reach number one in the USA
00:26and saw continuous chart-topping success in the UK.
00:31Since then, they've sold more than 50 million albums
00:34and cemented their place in the Aussie music history books.
00:37In August, the band lost their leading lady
00:40when Judith Durham died aged 79.
00:47The Seekers' final recording together, Carry Me,
00:49is being released in a new album to celebrate their diamond jubilee.
01:01Congratulations, 60 years, what an incredible milestone.
01:05Well, it's remarkable when we think back to how all this started,
01:09you know, back in late 1962.
01:12We were just having so much fun
01:14and fortunately the music that we liked together
01:18and the voices that matched each other
01:20and blended beautifully with Judith's beautiful lead
01:23just took us on an amazing path, you know,
01:26magic carpet ride, if you like,
01:28and the wonderful thing about it now,
01:30it's down to the longevity and the beauty of the music
01:35that fortunately, you know, came out of our musical feelings
01:39and the creativity of people like Tom Springfield
01:42with all those great hits,
01:44but lots of other artists whose songs we picked up along the way.
01:47In fact, I think we stole the Pup the Magic Dragon for a while.
01:50LAUGHTER
01:52We were acclaimed as having done that at one stage of the game,
01:56which we had to correct.
01:58And then Bruce, of course, started writing,
02:00so I've always said along the line,
02:02you never manufacture anything that ever happened to us.
02:05We just seem to be blessed at every turn of the road.
02:08Of course, lately, losing Judith was not the blessing
02:11we were looking for coming up to our 60s,
02:14so it's a highly nostalgic celebration.
02:17Nevertheless, it is a celebration.
02:19Hitting that mark is important for a whole heap of reasons
02:24and just makes us all together still stronger
02:28and we've been backed up beautifully by Universal Music,
02:31who've always loved our music,
02:33and just want to keep putting out everything we can find
02:37in our filing cabinets and in the bottom drawers.
02:40It's amazing what we have found.
02:42I think we're due to release another Hidden Treasures set
02:46of mystery objects next year,
02:48but this time around, of course,
02:50it's Carry Me, the 60 songs for 60 years,
02:53and Carry Me was found in a filing cabinet.
02:56It had been recorded as a lead song by Judith way back in 1995,
03:01and suddenly our historian, Graham Simpson, found it
03:05and it was just her lead, and I said to the boys,
03:08wow, gosh, this was a song absolutely tailor-made for us.
03:11And, of course, Bruce had written it for a dear friend of his
03:15who had been very unwell and had passed away,
03:18and the family wanted a song for his funeral,
03:21and Carry Me became a beautiful tribute from us
03:27when we'd added our voices and some more instruments
03:30to that basic track when we did Judith's memorial.
03:34You mentioned that you might release some new material.
03:37How will you go on without Judith?
03:39How will you remember her?
03:40The dear girl, in so many ways, is still with us all
03:43and no different to any other family, I guess,
03:45when you lose one of your treasured members.
03:48And so many things are still happening to us that involve her,
03:52so it sort of helps in that sense.
03:56We're all very aware of Judith's spirituality and her beliefs,
03:59and I reckon she's there, I'm 100% sure,
04:03and she'll be with us as we work through the 60 years
04:07in a slightly different format.
04:10But she'll be... because she was in on all the discussions,
04:13obviously, read the packaging of this particular album.
04:17We all had our choices of the songs and worked out eventually
04:21what the final 60 should be, and of course she...
04:24I'd had a few discussions with her about the final recording of Carry Me,
04:29so she was right up to speed with everything that was being planned
04:33and nothing added on, and fortunately, you know,
04:37that's why she's really, really so much a part of what we're about to do.
04:41Well, take me back to those early days.
04:43You were one of the very first Australian bands
04:45to dominate the world charts.
04:47Oh, that was as much fun as you could ever have.
04:50We were right there in the middle of the musical Olympics of the 60s,
04:55with all those names that everybody would remember,
04:58and winning our gold medals and gold records,
05:02and we knocked them all off.
05:05No-one could believe that we went straight to number one
05:07with our first song, I'll Never Find Another You,
05:09and then straight up to number one with the second song,
05:11The World Of Our Own, and straight up to number one
05:13with The Carnival Is Over.
05:15That was just 1965, and there were plenty more to follow,
05:19but we were then named by the New Musical Express
05:23in their awards program that they handed out every year.
05:26It was like the Oscars in the music business in those days,
05:29with London being the centre of the musical world.
05:32We were named top best new group internationally
05:34and went to a big concert at Wembley Arena with everybody,
05:3730 different acts.
05:38Well, the group that won it the year before us were the Rolling Stones,
05:44and the group that won it the year before the Rolling Stones
05:47were the Beatles.
05:48So from the awards point of view, we were in pretty elite company,
05:52and also they were on the show that we played at the Wembley Arena,
05:57which everybody can find it on YouTube if you want to have a look.
06:01It was a great, great, great concert.
06:03And then, of course, heaps of other stuff rolled off from there,
06:06and in 1966 we were the top points scorer in the charts in the UK.
06:11Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but were the Seekers originally four men?
06:15What happened there?
06:16Oh, yes.
06:17Four young boys, in fact, approaching manhood.
06:21I formed my first group when I was 18, 1958,
06:24and then Keith had formed his at the same time,
06:27separately a different group.
06:28We amalgamated as a group called the Escorts, four boys.
06:31Wonderful title for a boy group in those days.
06:35Anyway, then we morphed into the Seekers
06:39with three of those people with Bruce Woodley,
06:42who I started working with in an advertising agency in Melbourne.
06:45And we tossed a coin one day, Keith and I,
06:48with a very folky, bluesy, skiffley, and we needed a name for the new group,
06:53so we tossed a coin.
06:54It was either going to be the Seekers or the Searchers.
06:57Well, fortunately it came down Seekers,
06:59because we'd never heard of the Searchers
07:01who were about to break big in the UK.
07:03The four of us played along for a while,
07:05and Ken, our lead singer, decided to get married.
07:08He couldn't come out three nights a week singing with his mates
07:12under those circumstances.
07:14So Keith and Bruce and I just kept singing along in the clubs
07:18and we did a few cruises, having a lot of fun,
07:20and we just decided one day we really wanted a good lead singer.
07:23We were all harmony singers, all nice block harmony singers
07:28from our own musicality.
07:31We thought, no, this time we really like a girl.
07:33We really should have a girl with the three of us.
07:36We need someone that can hold those beautiful lead notes
07:39that we can, you know, like the coat hanger
07:41that you can drop the harmonics from.
07:43And that's when Judith entered my life one day,
07:46walked into my office at the agency that I was working at,
07:50introduced herself.
07:51I'd heard of her through her sister, Beverly,
07:53and I was going to go and hear her sing.
07:56And she said to me, oh, hello, you're Athol Gard.
07:58Oh, good morning.
07:59And you're around here?
08:00Yes, I'm Judith Durham.
08:02Are you Athol Gard?
08:03Yes, Judith Durham.
08:05I wasn't supposed to come and hear you sing sometime.
08:07Yes, you were.
08:09Well, there's no-one around.
08:11Oh, I think you'd better finish your coffee first.
08:14And I said, well, why don't you come and sing with us tonight?
08:17And that's it.
08:18And the rest is history.
08:20This train, I'm bound for glory.
08:22This train.
08:24This train, I'm bound for glory.
08:26This train.
08:28This train, I'm bound for glory.
08:30Don't wait until the lights are falling.
08:32This train, I'm bound for glory.
08:34This train.
08:35I will miss your company.
08:40You carry me.
08:43The Seekers' new album, Carry Me, is available now.
08:46Samantha Foxen, Sky News.
08:50The Seekers