Judith Durham

Judith Durham was an Australian singer, songwriter and musician who became the lead singer of the Australian folk music group The Seekers in 1962. The group became the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States and have sold over 50 million records worldwide. Durham left the group in mid-1968 to pursue her solo career. In 1993, Durham began to make sporadic recordings and performances with the Seekers, though she remained primarily a solo performer. On 1 July 2015, she was named Victorian of the Year for her services to music and a range of charities. Durham was born Judith Mavis Cock on 3 July 1943 in Essendon, Victoria, to William Alexander Cock, a navigator and World War II pathfinder, and his wife, Hazel (née Durham). She spent summer holidays at her family's weatherboard house on the west side of Durham Place in Rosebud. She was educated at Ruyton Girls' School Kew and then enrolled at RMIT. Durham at first planned to be a pianist and gained the qualification of Associate in Music, Australia (AMusA), in classical piano at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium. She had some professional engagements playing piano, had classical vocal training as a soprano, and performed blues, gospel and jazz pieces. Her singing career began one night at the age of 18 when she asked Nicholas Ribush, leader of the Melbourne University Jazz Band, at the Memphis Jazz Club in Malvern, whether she could sing with the band. In 1963, she began performing at the same club with Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers, using her mother's maiden name of Durham. In that year she also recorded her first EP, Judy Durham, with Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers for W&G Records. The Seekers consisted of Durham, Athol Guy, Bruce Woodley and Keith Potger, an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) radio producer. Through Potger's position the three were able to make a demo tape in their spare time. This was given to W&G Records, which wanted another sample of Durham's voice before agreeing to record a Jazz Preachers' album. W&G instead signed the Seekers for an album, Introducing the Seekers, in 1963. The group sailed to Britain in March 1964 as on-board entertainment on a Sitmar Line ship. They found an agent who booked them extensively in clubs, TV and variety theatre. He asked Tom Springfield (Dusty's brother) to write and produce a single for them, resulting in I'll Never Find Another You which made The Seekers the first Australian group ever to hit No.1 internationally. The next few years brought The Seekers worldwide adulation, with tours, more albums and a succession of huge hits including A World Of Our Own, The Carnival Is Over and Morningtown Ride. The Seekers' biggest international seller was Georgy Girl, originally written for the movie starring Lynn Redgrave. Durham left The Seekers in mid-1968 after their final concert at London's Talk Of The Town nightclub. She embarked on a solo career that included albums such as Gift Of Song (1970), Climb Ev'ry Mountain (1971), For Christmas With Love (1974), Let Me Find Love (1994) and Mona Lisas (2001). She also recorded several albums with The Hottest Band In Town led by Ed Devereaux Jr., whom she married in 1969. He died of motor neurone disease in 1994. Durham reunited with The Seekers in 1993 for a 25th anniversary tour and a new album, 25 Year Reunion Celebration. They continued to perform and record together sporadically until 2014, when Durham suffered a brain haemorrhage after a concert in Melbourne. She recovered and resumed her solo career, releasing her final album, So Much More, in 2018. Durham was honoured with numerous awards for her music and charity work, including five ARIA Awards, an Order of Australia medal, a Victorian of the Year award and an induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame. She was also a patron of the Motor Neurone Disease Association of Australia and an ambassador for the Australian Children's Music Foundation. Durham died on 5 August 2022 at the age of 79, after suffering complications from bronchiectasis, a chronic lung condition. She is survived by her sister Beverley Sheehan and her extended family. She is remembered as one of Australia's most beloved and influential singers, whose voice touched millions of people around the world.