( * as part of The Seekers )
Chart entered : 13 December 1967
Chart peak : 50
It was now the turn of Australia's finest to make way. I love The Seekers so it pains me to say they went out with an absolute stinker, by far the worst of their hits and barely deserving of the single week in the anchor position the UK public saw fit to give it. Written by Kim Fowley and "John Martin" ( a nom de plume for Keith Potger that he didn't admit to until 26 years later ) it sets a lyric about the Wizard Of Oz to the tune of Beethoven's Ode To Joy. There's some great singing as always but for most of the time it's accompanied by a tuneless kiddie choir. It just goes to show that Christmas singles are fraught with peril ; if you get them wrong it can seriously damage your standing.
In fact this single created more problems for the band than just a poor showing in the charts. In June , Judith had scored a modest hit as a solo artist with the Tom Springfield song "The Olive Tree" , which was OK but not up with the group's best work. None of the guys were happy with Judith doing solo material so when the release of her follow up single "Again And Again " ( an over-produced mess that indicated Judith's talents didn't extend to songwriting ) was delayed until a fortnight before the release of this one and it flopped, she suspected that her bandmates were conspiring with the label to thwart her solo aspirations.
Matters came to a head with the next single when the band were packed off to work with Mickie Most . When Judith realised that Most's terms included a 4% cut of the royalties she objected that the band were only on 3% split four ways. The guys were willing to accept these terms and Judith was temporarily placated by the record coming out under the banner "The Seekers featuring Judith Durham" in April 1968. "Days Of My Life" was written by Tony Romeo and plays to their strengths, a wistful ballad about a lost love that can't be rekindled. The promo film featured Judith sitting on a separate bench from the others then waving at them from the top of a tower while they remain on the ground. Judith also said in a 2001 interview that she was unhappy with the guys for not telling her that the bloke she was seeing was cheating on her.
When the song failed to chart Judith took that as a cue to give in her notice. This was not announced to the public but mentioned to the BBC during negotiations for a TV special to be broadcast in July 1968. Before that they had a week's residency at the Talk Of The Town night club but as that began the Radio Times came out , billing the forthcoming show as Farewell The Seekers . Judith had to confirm the news to reporters at the club to the dismay and anger of fans who hadn't realised the gigs would be their last opportunity to see the band live.
Given that the Beatles staggered over the line into the seventies , the Seekers split was the big break-up story of the Sixties. While many bands had petered out in obscurity, the Tornados being a good example, few had dissolved at the height of their fame ; the Springfields perhaps, but they'd only just got going, or the Animals but they disintegrated until there was only one of them left rather than making a clean break .
The TV special drew 10 million viewers. It's poignant viewing as the band perform all the hits interspersed with some very awkward comedy; Athol Guy , the bassist and outright winner of the "Pop Star who looks most like a Bank Manager " award, is clearly delivering his lines through gritted teeth. Judith says very little throughout. Guy's choked-up announcement of the final song with the words "The carnival really is over" screams for a cutaway to Judith that doesn't happen but her expression during the song is uncharacteristically sombre.
Despite the success of the show the next single "Love Is Kind Love Is Wine" a slight Bruce Woodley song recorded at the Talk Of The Town wasn't a hit. Its parent LP certainly was, peaking at number 2. In November Columbia put out their version of the Springfields' "Island Of Dreams" from 1966's "Come The Day" LP as a hopeful Christmas single but it didn't happen. The following March Fontana opportunistically released "Children Go Where I Send You" a folk carol from their 1963 audition tape. In August Columbia released "Colours Of My Life" as a single to promote the greatest hits LP "The Best Of The Seekers". No one was interested in the '45 but the album was a monster hit.
Judith returned to Australia in August 1968 and got to work on a Christmas album "For Christmas With Love" released in November that year to little acclaim. In 1969 she married the English pianist and arranger Ron Edgeworth. Her next album "Gift of Song" didn't come out until the beginning of 1970. The lead-off single was "The Dark Is Light Enough". Written by Richard Kerr and Jean Maitland it has a grand production by Chad Stuart with Judith soaring over the strings and crashing drums as she sings of newly found personal liberty. The BBC generously gave her another showcase Meet Judith Durham and she appeared regularly on TV throughout the year on things like Mike And Bernie's Scene and Frost On Sunday but it didn't generate sales. Another single not on the LP "Let Me Find Love" where her piercing vocal overcomes the saccharin nature of the song, also failed to make an impact. Judith wasn't slow in looking for scapegoats and alighted on The New Seekers accusing them in the press of trading on the name. She didn't mention Keith Potger by name but could hardly be unaware of his involvement.
Her next album in 1971 was "Climb Ev'ry Mountain". The single was a barnstorming version of the title track with Judith hitting the heavens with the final note. The problem was the public was sated with The Sound of Music by this time and just wasn't interested. Without a hit single the album disappeared.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly why Judith's solo career couldn't get off the ground. Judith might not have liked the implication of obsolescence in the New Seekers' choice of name but that probably didn't have much to do with it. Nor do I think the harmonies of the three guys were essential to her appeal. There was definitely some lingering resentment at her pulling the plug on a well-loved group. Or maybe she took too long to get started and was seen as a face and voice from the previous decade. I think the most likely explanation, and here I think she did miss her old colleagues , was the perennial problem of singers who don't write , poor song choices. I haven't heard the two albums end to end but what I have heard is quality adult music without any pop hooks. She needed a solid hit single to lift off and there just wasn't one there. In 1972 she released "Here Am I" which is a compilation of the best tracks from the previous two LPs but the public still wasn't biting.
Judith lay low for a couple of years then re-emerged as a jazz singer once more. She got a deal with Pye and released two LPs and three singles under the name "Judith Durham and the Hottest Band In Town" in 1974. "I Wanna Dance To Your Music" was her own composition in a 1940s dance band vein. "What'll I Do" is a smoky version of the old Irving Berlin number where Edgeworth as producer ( on all these singles ) puts her voice too low in the mix. "It's Going To Be A Beautiful Day" is another of Judith's own songs, a plodding supper club number with a meandering sax. She appeared on Benny Hill but strangely did an album track rather than any of this trio of singles. She also suffered a financial calamity in 1974 when the Swiss bank holding her savings collapsed and she lost $80,000.
That was the UK's last sighting of Judith as a performer ( she did reside in England for some time ) for nearly twenty years. She was not invited into the reformed Seekers in 1975; the guys took up the option they had spurned in 1968 and brought in a new singer. They had some success in Australia but met with indifference elsewhere. I'm not sure her next LP in 1978 as a jazz duo with Edgeworth recorded live in concert was even released in the UK. For the next decade or so Judith and Ron lived a semi-reclusive lifestyle in Queensland venturing out only to play gigs as a duo in RSO clubs and the like. There were no records.
In 1990 she and Ron were seriously injured in a car accident and the volume of goodwill messages received seems to have persuaded her that she should embrace a wider public once more. At the beginning of 1992 she released her first single ( by mail order ) for over a decade in "Australia Land Of Today" which is OK if you like flag-waving anthems. More significantly she agreed to a meeting with her fellow Seekers at a restaurant and within a couple of months they had announced plans for a Silver Jubilee Celebration Tour in 1993. This was so well received that the group remained in being for the next 11 years although there were no restrictions on Judith recording solo material. Their Silver Jubilee album , issued in the UK as "A Carnival Of Hits" contained two new recordings "Keep A Dream In Your Pocket" a Bruce Woodley song which was released as a single and "One World Love" a co-write between Judith and Oz-only pop star John Young. Both are woolly-headed hymns to postivity that only they could get away with in the nineties.
Judith took advantage of her regained popularity to release a solo album the following year, "Let Me Find Love" which contained all the songs she'd been working on with Ron over the past two decades. Judith had at least a hand in writing all bar one of the songs. These are mainly sentimental ballads with glossy nineties production values , a bit like Celine Dion with a better voice. I'm not saying Celine is a poor singer but Judith's voice had actually got better over the years acquiring a richer tone. Apart from the ghastly "We Must Teach Our Children" ( a sick- making eco-hymn with kiddie chorus ) it's a beautifully sung but rather bland offering. It did restore her to the Australian album charts.
Just two months after its release Ron passed away after a long battle with Motor Neurone Disease and Judith has been a patron of related charities ever since. Judith returned to England to record her next album with former Elton John producer Gus Dudgeon. "Mona Lisas" released in 1996 is all covers and made the UK album charts. Judith sounds more comfortable with a sympathetic production and interpreting well-chosen songs. Her versions of Lesley Duncan's "Love Song" , Renaissance's "Northern Lights" and "The End Of The World" are particularly good.
1997 was a busy year. The band got a lucrative record deal for two new albums and a box set. That came out first. "Treasure Chest" again featured two new songs. "Far Shore" was written by Flash and the Pan's Vanda and Young and released as a single with The Seekers doing a ( not very inspired ) video for the first time. The song comes across as a bit self-congratulatory but those magical harmonies flatten any opposition. The Indian-flavoured "Hey Hey Hey" with its tabla rhythms and clumsy eco-warrior lyrics is best forgotten. Judith then had a duet hit with Air Supply's Russell Hitchcock doing Woodley's song "I Am Australian" and helping to turn it into an unofficial national anthem.
Then came the band's first studio album for thirty years, "Future Road ". They and producer Charles Fisher ( riding high with Savage Garden at the time ) set out to make a "classic" Seekers album that would sit alongside their sixties material and within those parameters succeeded. It's safe and cosy and there's a careful allocation of material between the three writers in the band but really Judith's ballad "It's Hard To Leave" would be the only contender for a place on a 12 track Best Of... compilation. The album got to number 4 in Australia but for some reason wasn't released internationally.
There seems to have been little enthusiasm to record a follow-up. In 2000 Judith had a fall and broke her hip. She had to sing "The Carnival Is Over " from a wheelchair at the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games. Also in that year she re-released "Let Me Find Love" as "Hold On To Your Dream".
In 2001 she did an ostensible solo tour though the other Seekers were there as "guests". At the end of the year they fulfilled their contract by hacking out a Christmas LP "Morningtown Ride To Christmas" , almost certainly their last and a tawdry addition to their catalogue.
In 2002 she did a concert with the Melbourne Welsh Male Voice Choir split between her songs and traditional Welsh hymns. It was released as an album shortly afterwards. In 2003 the band , amicably this time, decided to bring things to a close and marked it with another compilation "The Ultimate Collection" . This had just one new track, a marvellous version of "Maasachusetts" ( which the Gibbs had been intending to offer them in the first place ) which surpasses the original, Judith's autumnal voice tapping unusual depths of melancholy in a very familiar song.
Judith did a solo tour to celebrate her 60th birthday that year with a well received concert at the Royal Festival Hall released on DVD. She's in excellent voice but is starting to look quite frail with thin arms and old woman's hands on the keys.
After that she went into semi-retirement , making brief one-off appearances at ceremonies until the release of an a capella album "Up Close And Personal Volume 1 in 2009 celebrating the fact that her voice was still more or less intact. She did a one hour concert in Melbourne to further make the point. In 2011 she released an LP of new songs, "Epiphany" . I've only heard the trailer for it ; her voice sounds in fine fettle but the material sounds rather soporific.
That same year she reunited with the boys for some support dates with Andre Rieu. This led on to plans for a Golden Jubilee album and tour and yet again they went into the studio to record a couple of new tracks for the album. , the Springfields' US hit "Silver Threads And Golden Needles" and the Beatles "In My Life" . Both are pleasant but plodding and there are indications of vocal vulnerability all round.
The European leg of the tour had to be postponed in May 2013 when Judith suffered a brain haemorrhage coming off stage in Melbourne. However by September she felt recovered enough to announce that the tour would resume. The last date in the UK was just last month at the Royal Albert Hall. Contrary to some over-generous reviewers Judith's voice is not what it was, some of her range is gone and the arrangements take heed of that, but it's certainly still good enough to see a full length concert through. Looking at Judith now in a long wig and industrial quantities of make-up, being helped around the stage by the blokes, all still chipper ( like Charlie Watts , Keth Potger will still be a good-looking bloke if he lives to be 100 ), you can't imagine they'll be back again but you never know.
No comments:
Post a Comment