The Seekers: The 50 Year Recorded History of Australia's First Supergroup

Description

This is the world's first Enseeklopedia' - a treasure trove of stories, music analysis and rare memorabilia. Moreover, it is a long overdue salute to Australia's Fab Four and their enduring recording catalogue. In tracing contemporary Australian music, history will recall the four young Melbourne musicians who started the ball rolling internationally for every big name Australian artist who would follow in their footsteps. Folk and gospel group The Seekers - featuring the golden voice of Judith Durham, Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley - set sail for the UK in 1964 on a working holiday, totally unaware of the global fame and fortune that lay ahead. Chart-topping hits, gold and platinum record awards, soldout tours and record-breaking crowds in the 60s, and again in the reunion years since 1993. In this publishing first, renowned Australian authors Christopher Patrick (ABBA: Let The Music Speak) and Graham Simpson (The Judith Durham Story Colours Of My Life) have joined forces to produce the first-ever Seekers coffee table book an in-depth and highly informative look at the recording history of Australia's first supergroup. Their forensic analysis of every song The Seekers recorded in the 50 years between 1963 and 2013 sits comfortably with peeks behind the scenes, never-before-revealed facts, fascinating trivia, and a kaleidoscope of photos and memorabilia much of it never seen before. With a good tour guide, you see so much more when you know what it is you're looking at; Chris has approached The Seekers' song list from a musician's perspective, undressing every song the group ever recorded to reveal the vocal and instrumental craft at play. Graham has brought to the coffee table his penchant for fascinating Seekers minutiae, and an archive of memorabilia gathered from all over the world over five decades. The Seekers were the very first group to put Australia on the international music map, and they will be forever known for knocking The Kinks, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones off the top of the UK charts, and The Monkees from the Number One spot on the American charts with their global phenomenon, the Academy Award-nominated song "Georgy Girl." They were clean-cut, clean-living Aussie youths when the rollercoaster began; their music was wholesome and free of gimmicks. The Seekers came, sang and conquered in the Sixties, yet the footprint they left on the international music map is as indelible today as it was half a century ago. If you have a favourite Seekers musical memory, it's in this book. If you want to know who played what; or how they got that sound'; or who Pierrot and Columbine were this is the book for you. If you like the photography and artwork of the Sixties, then you'll love the images captured by some of the top pop photographers of the era, and the many obscure record covers from every corner of the globe. Why were there two different versions of several songs; how did a sad song called "Downhearted Blues" turn into the chart-topper "A World Of Our Own"?; and who sneezes at the end of the 1967 recording of "Myra"? It's in here.

Journalist, author and music historian Graham Simpson spent seven years as editor of Australias longest-running weekly music publication, Juke, and several years as a radio commentator. He has worked as Australian correspondent for the Hong Kong Standard and for Londons World Entertainment News Network, was editor of both The Video Age and National Tattler, and has been a metropolitan daily newspaper columnist. Graham spent 19 years as a writer and interviewer with Australias leading radio syndication company MCM. Graham has worked with The Seekers since 1993 over which time he has designed and authored souvenir programmes for all of The Seekers tours, and sleeve notes for Seekers albums since 1995. The groups CD box set Treasure Chest, featuring Grahams interview with The Seekers, was certified gold. In 1994, Grahams best-selling authorised biography The Judith Durham Story - Colours Of My Life - was published for the first time. It has been republished five times since. He later edited From The Word Go - Forty Years Of Network Ten Melbourne, by Mal Walden. In 2008, Brisbane-based author Christopher Patrick published his first book, the critically acclaimed ABBA: Let The Music Speak. Four years in the making, it is a 400-page world-first, an armchair guide to the song writing and recording genius of the Swedish super-group. Christopher provided valuable insights into ABBA's musical legacy for the 2013 Swedish-produced documentary "ABBA - Dancing Queen", which examined the creation of ABBA's most popular song. A music graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium, Christopher's professional career has included thirty years as cellist with the Queensland Pops Orchestra, numerous Australian pop and classical recordings and live performances with artists such as Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart and the Electric Light Orchestra. In 2013, Christopher was invited to write the sleeve notes for Judith Durham's 70th birthday CD, "The Platinum Album". "The Seekers A-Z" is Christopher's second literary work and his first collaboration with pop historian Graham Simpson.