Review: The Seekers - Introducing The Seekers (1963)
Tracks: 1) Dese Bones G’Wine Rise Again; 2) When The Stars Begin To Fall; 3) Run Come See; 4) This Train; 5) All My Trials; 6) The Light From The Lighthouse; 7) Chilly Winds; 8) Kumbaya; 9) The Hammer Song; 10) Wild Rover; 11) Katy Cline; 12) Lonesome Traveller.
REVIEW
Today, the Seekers are mainly remembered as the first Australian band to make it big on the international scene — several years before the Bee Gees, and a whole decade before AC/DC, with both of whom they had little in common anyway. Well, actually, they did have one very important thing in common: just like the Bee Gees and just like AC/DC, the Seekers were entertainers first and artists second, which seems to be a fairly common thing indeed for internationally famous Australian musical teams, probably because Australia is so damn far from everywhere, you’d really have to struggle to get yourself noticed. Play it humble and reticent, and you’ll just be stuck in Sydney with the Melbourne blues again for the entirety of your sad antipode life — you don’t really have the advantage of sharing Greenwich Village as your home turf, where you can just cool it and wear a frown and still get written about in media that matter.
Really, this is the first thing that springs to mind when listening to the Seekers’ very first album, which, upon its original release, did not even chart in Australia, let alone the rest of the world (later, after the Seekers gained fame, it was published for the international market as simply The Seekers, with the same tracks but in a different running order). At the time, the folk quartet focused exclusively on traditional ballads and spirituals, neither writing their own material nor yet taking it out of the hands of contemporary songwriters — the track list here is pretty much the same as in the general Pete Seeger or Peter, Paul, and Mary repertoire. There is hardly even anything specifically related to Australia, although the band’s very first single was indeed a rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ — not being an expert, I cannot say if this is due to particular dearth of the specifically Australian folk tradition or to the fact that the Seekers, from the very start, were aiming to fit in on the international scene.
Anyway, what matters is not the precise scope of the material, but the approach taken by the band. From the opening vocal lines and acoustic chords of ‘Dese Bones G’wine Rise Again’, the good old Negro spiritual retelling the beginning of the Book of Genesis in an accessible fashion, it is clear that the Seekers are not here to emphasize the Deepest Depth, Most Serious Seriousness, and Most Holy Holiness of the folk tradition — on the contrary, they are promoting its lightness, its fun, its ability to ignite a merry campfire inside the hearts of listeners, and even, where possible, its humor and irony. Athol Guy slaps his double bass like a proper village square entertainer; Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley chop up their guitars like hyper-energetic pop musicians; and Judith Durham, the group’s only non-playing singer (later, she would occasionally sit in on keyboards), raises her energetic voice over those of her male companions with all the verve and passion of an inspired Soviet Young Pioneer. (The latter is not necessarily a compliment, at least not in some contexts, but Judith is alright).
People who tolerate rather than enjoy the Seekers tend to point to the beauty of Durham’s voice as the main, if not the only, reason to listen to this stuff in the first place — I’m guessing that they will point to ‘All My Trials’ as the indisputable highlight of the album, since this is the only song here on which Judith not only takes lead, but is actually allowed to sing solo all the time. But while she does have a stronger and more flexible voice than, say, Shirley Collins, it is a fairly ordinary strong and flexible voice, with not a lot of unique personality to it; I probably would not be able to tell Durham from a thousand other lovely folk maidens going all the way from the early Sixties and into the present age. On the other hand, she is a good alternative if, like some people I know, you happen to be aurally allergic to the sharp and shrill pitch of the likes of Joan Baez — now there is a singer with an unmistakable identity, yet that particular identity can just as easily piss off people as enchant them. At least Durham is steadily reliable; I can’t imagine how she could be «hated» on an instinctive level.
In any case, the Seekers are first and foremost a group, and they are at their best when they play, sing, and juggle their harmonies in ways that combine folksy earnestness with doo-wop playfulness (do not forget that the Seekers, initially the Escorts, actually started out as a doo-wop group) — for instance, on the non-stop power trip that is ‘The Light From The Lighthouse’, with each member taking on lead vocals for one verse and various members constantly going off on their own tangents during the chorus, creating a rich, complex, unpredictable kaleidoscope of vocal effects. I have seen a few listeners complain about the excessive «religiousness» of the record, but nothing could be further from the truth: the Seekers just want you to get caught up in this game they play, they don’t actually want to make you go to church.
In terms of musicianship, there is nothing particularly outstanding here, but the Seekers always knew how to play their instruments — in fact, Woodley’s acoustic lead that introduces ‘The Hammer Song’ makes me wish they would have thrown on a couple pure instrumentals, being played so cleanly, precisely, and meaningfully. Other than that brief bit, however, instrumental performance always takes second place to group harmonies, even when the commonly used guitars cede their places to the more rarely used banjos and fiddles. The most important instrument, however, is Guy’s double bass, giving most of the songs a strong rhythmic «bottom» and constantly luring you into clapping your hands, tapping your feet, or just giving it up and getting to dancing — entertainment, remember? This is the closest that early folk comes not just to «folk pop», but to «dance-oriented folk pop», and there is nothing wrong with that — on the contrary, this is a nice fresh change from all the exaggerated seriousness of the typical folk scene, even if, at the time, it meant that the Seekers would always be looked at rather condescendingly by their brethren from across both oceans.
I mean, the album, as well as most of the stuff that followed, can easily allow us to treat the Seekers as the Monkees of the folk movement — but given that it did not take us too long to learn to love the Monkees, or, at least, give them their own due respect, there is nothing wrong about doing the same for Judith Durham and her well-meaning Aussie compatriots. As for this debut album, though, while it does introduce the Seekers, it is also understandable that, with such a predictable song selection, it is more interesting in the overall exclusive musical context of 1963 than it is in the overall context of the band’s entire career — so let us close this page, and move on.
Only Solitaire: The Seekers reviews