I am talking to one of The Seekers, Athol Guy about the groups upcoming tour to Tasmania.
In answer to my question of how often he visits Tasmania , Athol says he doesn’t get here often enough, considering he has many connections to the state. He asks me to give his warmest wishes to all his friends in Tasmania.
Athol’s own dad, after the war years, settled in Tasmania where he was conductor at His Majesty’s Theatre and later taught music in Ulverstone. It was a a very important mission for Athol to find his dad’s grave in Hobart.
The Tasmanian connections continue with former Tassie born footballer and 3 time Brownlow medalist Ian Stewart being one of Athol’s neighbours in Melbourne.
I had talked previously to Judith Durham about the origin of the seekers name and Athol confirmed that there already there was a ‘Searchers’ (one of their first choices for a name and reflecting their searching nature) band in England and although there was a ‘Seekers’ group in Queensland, a coin toss saw it immortalised as the bands name.
True to their name the group sought out to create their own undefinable music, nothing like which had existed before although their evolution was from a folk tradition.
Their achievements have been incredible including the biggest audience recorded in the southern hemisphere for a concert, the first Australian number one song in the US and the UK and an Academy Award nomination for ‘Georgy Girl’. Athol calls their success in England ‘a 60’s musical Olympics’.
Fast forward to this year, the 50th anniversary of the band and they are singing happy birthday in Hammer Hall and reflecting on a sell out national tour. Athol thinks the bands longevity is in part due to the high respect in which the band components hold each other.
Another factor is the versatility of their songs. When the group supported Andre Reiu on his tour and he did arrangements of their songs in Maastricht including “I’ll never find another you”, “The carnival is over”, “I am Australian” and “Georgy girl” easily translatable into classical music with little effort.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing with Athol being involved in a car accident last year and Judith’s health scare of recent times, but now they are all set to tour and are looking forward to performing The Seekers The Golden Jubilee Tour at the Derwent Entertainment Centre on Saturday November 23.
Paula Xiberras
