JUDITH DURHAM, 1943 – 2022
Every Australian of a certain age knows all the words to the Seekers’ songs. Any gathering overseas will lead to The Carnival is Over, Morningtown Ride and probably Georgy Girl.
Perhaps Judith Durham’s other work – and there was a life in music and albums from 1963 to 2012 – isn’t as instantly well known, but she performed all her life, always with her hair in the same dark, long bob, straight cut across the fringe.
Judith Mavis Cock was born in Essendon in Victoria on July 3, 1943, daughter of William Cock DFC, a navigator and World War II pathfinder, and his wife Hazel (nee Durham). She went to Fahan School in Hobart, where she was a contemporary of actor Robyn Nevin, before moving back to Melbourne and attending Ruyton Girls’ School.
She intended to be a pianist and took an Associate in Music, Australia (AMusA) degree in classical piano at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, studying under the concert pianist Professor Ronald Farren-Price.
Durham played the piano professionally for a while, starting at a ballet school. Then, when she was 18, her singing career started when she asked if she could sing with a jazz band – and realised she could sing what the audience wanted in the way of blues, gospel and jazz standards of the 1920s and 1930s.
Judith Durham was one of Australia’s most prolific performers.Credit:Wayne Taylor
In 1963, she joined Frank Traynor’s Jazz Preachers and took her mother’s maiden name of Durham for her stage name. She also recorded her first EP, Judy Durham with Frank Traynor’s Jazz Preachers, which included the songs Just a Closer Walk With Thee, Moan You Mourners, Papa De Da Da and Jelly Bean Blues.
Then one day at around that time, Durham started a new job as a secretary with an advertising agency, and on the first day she met an account executive, Athol Guy, who by night was in a folk trio called the Seekers.
Along with Guy were Keith Potger and another advertising man, Bruce Woodley, and soon Durham was a regular in their Monday night performances at a popular coffee lounge. Potger in those days was also an ABC radio producer, so in his lunch hour he made a demo tape of the group, which became the first album, Introducing The Seekers – although Potger was not supposed to have a second job, so he didn’t appear on the record’s cover. Durham also recorded two more songs with the Jazz Preachers, Muddy Water and Trombone Frankie (a version of Bessie Smith’s Trombie Cholly).
Ready to see the world, in 1964 the group signed on to perform on the SS Fairsky to get to London. They planned to come home after 10 weeks in Europe but got so many bookings in England they decided to stay on.
In November 1964, the group released I’ll Never Find Another You, and by February it was No. 1 in the UK and Australia, and the Seekers were on their way to stardom. Over the next few years, the group released the hit records A World of Our Own, The Carnival is Over and Morningtown Ride.
The Seekers’ biggest international seller was Georgy Girl (music by Dusty Springfield’s brother, Tom), which had originally been the title song for the movie starring Lynn Redgrave, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Alan Bates. The song was nominated for an Academy Award and the single made No.1 in America.
In 1967, 200,000 people (about 10 per cent of Melbourne’s population at the time) saw the Seekers perform at the Myer Music Bowl. It wasn’t until 2020 that a full recording of the set that day was released, and at the launch of the Hidden Treasures record Durham, then 76, looked back in wonder at what is still the biggest concert in the Southern Hemisphere.
Keith Potger, Judith Durham, Athol Guy and Bruce Woodley during a promotional stunt for The Seekers.
“I had a dry mouth, you do get that sometimes with nerves, plus there was no air conditioning and it was a Melbourne summer, typical March weather,” Durham said. “I’ll Never Find Another You had become No. 1 all over the world and that was a big turning point for us, but we hadn’t had the huge welcome from the Australian people yet. That was what was so mind-blowing when we performed that show at the bowl.”
It was part of a series of big moments for the band in 1967 – The Seekers Down Under rated through the roof on television, and the members were named Australians of the Year (the only time in the award’s history that a group has had the title).
However, the following year, despite all her success with the Seekers, Durham decided that she wanted something else and announced that she was leaving the group. She also decided, in 1968, to become a vegetarian, and after that lived a life that was non-smoking, environmentally friendly, decaffeinated, teetotal, drug free and cruelty free.
Judith Durham launched a successful solo career after leaving the Seekers in 1968. Credit:Fairfax
The decision to leave the Seekers paid off, offers for her to sing as a solo artist flooded in, and she asked a London-based freelance musician, Ron Edgeworth, to be her musical director, pianist and arranger. Edgeworth had worked with many big names and was in constant demand, but he signed on with Durham.
Her first solo album was For Christmas with Love, and she continued to tour, working in New Zealand and Australia, and was in constant demand for tours and nightclubs in the UK. In 1969, she and Edgeworth were married in Melbourne.
Durham continued to work around the world, singing anything and everything from folk to jazz to blues to gospel to ragtime and classical. In the 1970s, she recorded trad jazz albums with Edgeworth and released a piano and voice recording from the Newport Jazz Festival in 1978.
In the 1980s, Durham and Edgeworth settled on the Sunshine Coast, and she concentrated on writing and performing her own work. She and Ian Austin also wrote a musical, Gotta Be Rainbows.
The bad times came in the 1990s. In 1990, Durham, Edgeworth and their tour manager were in a car accident that killed the driver of the other car and left Durham with a fractured wrist and leg. However, she was never daunted. In January 1993, with the Seekers’ silver jubilee approaching, the group announced a reunion concert. This turned into a successful tour, but then Edgeworth was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and died in late 1994.
A better part of 1994 was the release of Durham’s authorised biography, Colours of My Life: The Judith Durham Story, by Graham Simpson. This was popular enough to be updated and re-released in 1998 and 2003. In 1995, the Seekers were inducted into the Australian Record Industry Association’s (ARIA) Hall of Fame, and Durham was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to music.
After years without an album, in 1996 Durham released Mona Lisas. The following year this was released again as Always There with Durham’s solo recording of Bruce Woodley’s I am Australian (with Russell Hitchcock of Air Supply and Mandawuy Yunupingu of Yothu Yindi).
For some years around this time, Durham was stalked by an obsessed fan, who bombarded her with telephone calls and faxes and started spurious law cases against her. In 1998, the stalker was eventually convicted of stalking and ordered not to approach Durham.
In 2000, Durham’s album Let Me Find Love was re-released as Hold on to Your Dream, with the extra recording of her song Australia Land of Today. Durham toured Australian again in 2001 and, in 2003, she toured the UK to mark her 60th birthday. A film of her birthday concert in London’s Royal Festival Hall was released in 2004 as a DVD.
In 2006, Durham sang part of her song Seldom Melbourne Leaves My Mind in Melbourne, and was invited by the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund to record it as a fundraiser. In the end, Durham recorded her entire The Australian Cities Suite, which was released in October 2008 in aid of charity. The suite includes Sydney Girl of My Dreams, Happy Years I Spent in Hobart and Australia Land of Today.
Durham went back on stage in 2012 with her 50th anniversary one-woman touring show, Colours of My Life, and her 1969 album Gift of Song was at last released on CD.
Judith Durham, lead singer of the Seekers, before winning a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Australian Women In Music Awards in 2019.Credit:Paul Jeffers
Over the years, Durham performed with the Seekers, usually for charity, and in 2013 they got together for a 50th anniversary tour. Celebrations to mark the anniversary included Australia Post presenting Durham with a 24-carat gold “stamp” as part of the “Legends of Australian Music” series, and the portrait of the group by Helen Edwards hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley, Judith Durham and Athol Guy reunited for the Seekers’ 50th birthday celebrations.Credit:Justin McManus
Then, after their first tour concert, at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall, Durham complained about not feeling well and collapsed with a brain haemorrhage. The stroke affected her ability to read and write, and she spent months in rehabilitation, but she did not lose her singing voice, as she told The Age in 2019. “The doctor said, ‘Can you sing me a bit of a song?’ and of course I sang Morningtown Ride.”
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