Post by erik on Sept 3, 2022 19:06:56 GMT -5
The 1960's Australian folk-pop group The Seekers are in this week's Pop Music Hits Spotlight with their biggest U.S. hit, spotlighted in honor of the group's lead singer Judith Durham, who passed away on August 5, 2022.
GEORGY GIRL (The Seekers; Capitol/EMI; 1966)—The folk music movement produced a lot of great music and a lot of great artists for sure, but sometimes certain groups within that genre tended to get overshadowed by those bigger artists. And not all of these groups that hit with a popular folk music sound were necessarily or even strictly American. One such act was The Seekers, who were formed in 1962 in Melbourne, Australia. Consisting of band members Athol Guy, Keith Polger, and Bruce Woodley, and highly accomplished lead singer Judith Durham, the group initially achieved notoriety in their native country, but then they attracted the attention of Tom Springfield, the leader of the English folk-pop group The Springfields and the brother of soon-to-be British pop icon Dusty Springfield. He helped The Seekers get their first large scale international hit in early 1965 with “I’ll Never Find Another You”. Although too “pop” to ever be considered part of the folk music movement, and not “rock” enough in some other ways, the song and the group achieved instant notoriety, as the single hit #1 in England and #4 in America in March 1965. The group’s biggest U.S. hit, however, came late in 1966, via the cinema. Georgy Girl, based on a novel by Margaret Forster, starred Lynn Redgrave, the youngest member of a great British acting dynasty, as the titular character, who happens to be hugely talented musically and well educated, but who on the inside is a mass of insecurities. The film, directed by Silvio Narizano, and co-starring James Mason, Charlotte Rampling, and Alan Bates, was a significant “Swinging Sixties” hit at the box office on both sides of the Atlantic and made Redgrave a bonafide star of her own. The Seeker’s title song contribution, another Tom Springfield composition, was released as a single on EMI (Capitol in the United States), in November 1966, and was a massive folk-pop hit, peaking at #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart in early February 1967. Only the Monkees’ “I’m A Believer” kept it from reaching the penthouse (it was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song, but lost to the title song for Born Free. Pretty soon, Durham would leave the group for a solo career, although she would have on-and-off reunions with her group over the decades. Durham, sadly, would succumb to bronchieltasis, a condition she had been suffering from for much of her life, on August 5, 2022 at the age of 79.
GEORGY GIRL (The Seekers; Capitol/EMI; 1966)—The folk music movement produced a lot of great music and a lot of great artists for sure, but sometimes certain groups within that genre tended to get overshadowed by those bigger artists. And not all of these groups that hit with a popular folk music sound were necessarily or even strictly American. One such act was The Seekers, who were formed in 1962 in Melbourne, Australia. Consisting of band members Athol Guy, Keith Polger, and Bruce Woodley, and highly accomplished lead singer Judith Durham, the group initially achieved notoriety in their native country, but then they attracted the attention of Tom Springfield, the leader of the English folk-pop group The Springfields and the brother of soon-to-be British pop icon Dusty Springfield. He helped The Seekers get their first large scale international hit in early 1965 with “I’ll Never Find Another You”. Although too “pop” to ever be considered part of the folk music movement, and not “rock” enough in some other ways, the song and the group achieved instant notoriety, as the single hit #1 in England and #4 in America in March 1965. The group’s biggest U.S. hit, however, came late in 1966, via the cinema. Georgy Girl, based on a novel by Margaret Forster, starred Lynn Redgrave, the youngest member of a great British acting dynasty, as the titular character, who happens to be hugely talented musically and well educated, but who on the inside is a mass of insecurities. The film, directed by Silvio Narizano, and co-starring James Mason, Charlotte Rampling, and Alan Bates, was a significant “Swinging Sixties” hit at the box office on both sides of the Atlantic and made Redgrave a bonafide star of her own. The Seeker’s title song contribution, another Tom Springfield composition, was released as a single on EMI (Capitol in the United States), in November 1966, and was a massive folk-pop hit, peaking at #2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart in early February 1967. Only the Monkees’ “I’m A Believer” kept it from reaching the penthouse (it was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song, but lost to the title song for Born Free. Pretty soon, Durham would leave the group for a solo career, although she would have on-and-off reunions with her group over the decades. Durham, sadly, would succumb to bronchieltasis, a condition she had been suffering from for much of her life, on August 5, 2022 at the age of 79.