Judith Durham

Judith Durham (born Judith Mavis Cock; 3 July 1943 – 5 August 2022) was an Australian singer, songwriter and musician who became the lead singer of the Australian folk music group the Seekers in 1962.

The Seekers 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. From 1993, she began to make sporadic recordings and performances with the Seekers, though she remained primarily a solo performer. On 1 July 2015, during the annual Victoria Day celebrations, she was named Victorian of the Year for her services to music and a range of charities.

Early life

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). From her birth until 1949, she lived on Mount Alexander Road, Essendon. She spent summer holidays at her family's weatherboard house (which since has been demolished) on the west side of Durham Place in Rosebud.

Her father accepted work in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1949. From early 1950, the family lived in Taroona, a suburb of Hobart, where Durham attended the Fahan School before moving back to Melbourne, residing in Georgian Court, Balwyn, in 1956. She was educated at Ruyton Girls' School in 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

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. Durham, however, recorded two other songs with the Jazz Preachers, "Muddy Water" (which appeared on their album Jazz from the Pulpit) and "Trombone Frankie" (an adapted version of Bessie Smith's "Trombone Cholly").

In early 1964, the Seekers sailed to the United Kingdom on SS Fairsky on which the group provided the musical entertainment. Originally, they had planned to return after 10 weeks, but they received a steady stream of bookings through the Grade Agency because they had sent the agency a copy of their first album. On 4 November 1964 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, the Seekers recorded "I'll Never Find Another You", written and produced by Tom Springfield. In February 1965, the song reached number one in the UK and Australia. The group had further Top 10 hits with "A World of Our Own", "Morningtown Ride" and "Someday, One Day". "Georgy Girl" reached number two (Billboard chart) and number one (Cashbox chart) in the United States. "The Carnival Is Over" is still one of the top 50 best-selling singles in the UK.

On 12 March 1967, the Seekers set an official all-time Australian record when more than 200,000 people (nearly one tenth of the city's entire population at that time) flocked to their performance at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne. Their TV special The Seekers Down Under scored the biggest TV audience ever (with a 67 rating), and early in 1968 they were all awarded the nation's top honour as "Australians of the Year 1967". On a tour of New Zealand in February 1968, Durham advised the group that she was leaving the Seekers to pursue a solo career. In a 2016 interview on ABC’s One Plus One, she explained that she also wished to marry before the age of 25 and anticipated that marriage and family responsibilities would limit her ability to continue performing. This, along with her desire to pursue her passion of jazz and gospel music, led her to decide to go solo. Their last concert before Durham left the group was on a live BBC production on 7 July when they performed many of their hits.

Solo career

Durham returned to Australia in August 1968 and her first solo television special, An Evening with Judith Durham, screened on the Nine Network in September. During her solo career, she released albums titled For Christmas with Love, Gift of Song and Climb Ev'ry Mountain. In 1970, she made the television special Meet Judith Durham in London, ending with her rendition of "When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day" by Carrie Jacobs-Bond.

In 1975, Durham guest starred in "The Golden Girl", an episode of the Australian television series Cash and Company. Along with husband Ron Edgeworth on piano, she performed six songs; "Oh Susanna", "When Starlight Fades", "Maggie Mae", "Rock of Ages", "There's No Place Like Home" and "The Lord Is My Shepherd".

Durham staged a series of concerts at The Troubadour, Melbourne, in 1987 with Edgeworth, performing originals the two had written. They returned the following year.

In January 1992, Durham released "Australia Land of Today" which peaked at number 124 on the ARIA charts."

In 2003, Durham toured the UK in "The Diamond Tour" celebrating her 60th birthday. The tour included the Royal Festival Hall and a CD and DVD of the concert were issued.

In 2006, Durham started modernising the music and phrases of "Advance Australia Fair", the Australian national anthem; the Aboriginal singer-songwriter Kutcha Edwards also contributed lyrics. Durham first performed it in May 2009 at Federation Hall, St Kilda Road. It was released as a CD single.

Durham recorded The Australian Cities Suite album with all proceeds to go to the charitable sector. The album was released in October 2008. This project was to benefit charities working with the Lord Mayor's Charitable Fund, including Orchestra Victoria and the Motor Neurone Disease Association of Australia (Durham was national patron).

On 13 February 2009, Durham made a surprise return to the Sydney Myer Music Bowl when she performed the closing number at the RocKwiz Salutes the Bowl – Sidney Myer Music Bowl 50th Anniversary with "The Carnival Is Over". On 23 May 2009, she performed a one-hour a cappella concert in Melbourne as a launch for her album Up Close and Personal.

In October 2011, Durham signed an exclusive international deal with Decca Records. George Ash, president of Universal Music Australasia, said that "It is an honour to have Judith Durham join Decca's wonderful roster of artists. When you think of the legends that have graced the Decca Records catalogue it is the perfect home to welcome Judith to, and we couldn't be more excited to work with Judith on not only her new recordings but her incredible catalogue as well."

In June 2018, to celebrate Durham's 75th birthday, a collection of 14 previously unreleased songs was released on the album So Much More.

Personal life

On 21 November 1969, Durham married her musical director, British pianist Ron Edgeworth, at Scots' Church, Melbourne. Edgeworth had been with a group, the Trebletones, on the same tour.

Durham and her husband were vegetarian; she became a vegan after 2015. She also abstained from alcohol and caffeine.

They felt satisfied with each other and did not pursue having children. However, in a TV Interview of March 2010, she stated: "But, if children had come along, we always said we would have had them." They lived in the UK and Switzerland until the mid-1980s when they bought property in Maleny near Nambour, Queensland. In 1990, Durham, Edgeworth and their tour manager, Peter Summers, were involved in a car accident on the Calder Freeway. The driver of the other car died at the scene and Durham sustained a fractured wrist and leg. The response from her fans led to Durham deciding to get back with the other members of the Seekers for a silver jubilee show in 1993. During this reunion, Edgeworth was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, also known as ALS. While the diagnosis was hard for both of them, and caused him to become disabled, they tried to keep a positive outlook. In March, 2010, Judith remarked: "Once he realized that death was inevitable for him, his attitude was very positive. (In) that he was looking towards after this life, focusing very strongly on that, as a positive thing. And, that helped me enormously, as I was already going through grief from the time of his diagnosis to a large extent." He died from the disease on 10 December 1994 with Durham by his side.