Review: The Seekers - The Seekers (1964)
Tracks: 1) The Wreck Of The Old ’97; 2) Danny Boy; 3) Waltzing Matilda; 4) Cotton Fields; 5) Lemon Tree; 6) Gotta Travel On; 7) With My Swag All On My Shoulder; 8) Plaisir D’Amour; 9) Isa Lei; 10) Whisky In The Jar; 11) Five Hundred Miles; 12) The Gypsy Rover; 13) South Australia.
REVIEW
When the band’s second Australian album was re-released in the UK in 1971, three years after the Seekers’ first breakup, the record label people, searching for a more interesting title than just The Seekers, eventually settled on Roving With The Seekers — probably by association with one of the song titles (‘The Gypsy Rover’), but one could just as well tie the new title to the areal expansion seen in the track list. Introducing The Seekers, for the most part, defined its musical mission as introducing the average Greenwich Village set to Australian audiences. On The Seekers, the band broadens its horizons quite significantly — first, with songs taken from its native turf (‘Waltzing Matilda’, ‘South Australia’), and second, with tunes that have their origins from all over the world, even if most of them probably still came to the Seekers’ attention through the likes of Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Thus, Will Holt’s ‘Lemon Tree’ has its roots in a Brazilian folk song — incidentally, you can still hear a faint touch of Latin rhythms in Peter, Paul and Mary’s version, but they have all been neutralized in the Seekers’ strictly 4/4 rhythm play; on the positive side, their version is louder, rawer, more campfire-friendly than Peter, Paul and Mary’s china-cup performance, so you can make your own fun choice here. ‘Plaisir D’Amour’ is, of course, the classic(al) French romance song underlying Elvis’ ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’; not entirely sure where the Seekers nicked it from, since most of the song’s famous covers post-date rather than pre-date their version (Joan Baez, Marianne Faithfull, Nana Mouskouri etc.) — in any case, Judith Durham’s delivery is as fine as anybody’s. ‘Isa Lei’ takes us to Fiji, and the guys even make a serious effort to perform it in its native Austronesian tongue — granted, Fiji is geographically closer to Australia than it is to the UK or even to the US, but musically the song still finds itself translated to the Anglo-Saxon folk language (and is credited to A. W. Caten, the bandmaster who originally set the lyrics to a foxtrot arrangement, rather than to anybody who is actually from Fiji). Finally, ‘Whisky In The Jar’, of course, possesses a specifically Irish flavor, which is somewhat respected by the band as they try to reproduce the essence of a pub drinking song... but they are no Dubliners, after all.
A notable fact is that the album includes the Seekers’ first self-penned song: ‘With My Swag All On My Shoulders’, credited to all four band members, is a lively country-pop saga of a ramblin’ man travelling all over Australia, clearly self-referential to a degree and much closer in style to the merry, upbeat travel tales from the Irish tradition than to the generally more moody and introspective takes on the subject, common for places like the Appalaches. It’s nothing too special, but it is nice to see how authentic they could sound on something they’d created themselves (at least, I assume they created it on their own — though I do realize one should never trust songwriting credits on those rusty LPs from days long gone by). Linguistic note: "swag" should be understood here in its specifically Australian meaning of "load", rather than the 18th century slang meaning of "loot", let alone the 21st century slang meaning of... well, whatever "swag" is translated to in Commontongue.
The songs I like the most on here, unsurprisingly, are the ones featuring the exquisite lead vocal talents of Judith Durham: unfortunately, I’ve heard one too many versions of ‘Danny Boy’ to be inspired by the song ever again (though some of those high notes she hits are breathtaking if you are in the right mood), but Hedy West’s ‘500 Miles’, a beautiful song that was still fairly new and unspoiled at the time, is arguably the best rendition of it up to that time — Durham’s solo delivery is naturally more gorgeous than versions by the Journeymen or the Kingston Trio, and she gives the song more depth and breadth than Mary Travers; it is one of those few occasions where you (almost) begin to forget just how «pop» the Seekers were, and (almost) start looking to them for spiritual guidance.
That said, The Seekers still makes precious little effort at crossing the line separating loyal interpretation from original creativity... and why should it? At the time of its release (I have not been able to find the precise date, but I’m guessing some time early in 1964, before the band took off for Europe), the Seekers were still based in Australia, where demand for local performers of classic folk material was high and supply of high-quality bands relatively low — who else could deliver ‘Cotton Fields’ or ‘Gotta Travel On’ for the local crowds with as much verve, fun, and authenticity? It would not be until the band had set a tentative foot in European waters — where they could hardly be looked upon at first as anything but a cute musical curio from the land of kangaroos and didgeridoos — that they would get a genuine incentive for breaking out of that pattern. For now, though, they seemed relatively content to have produced the finest-sounding and highest-charting version of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ for their hometown market. Hmm, was it actually the highest-charting version of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in Australia? I’m not that sure, honestly. But I’d like to believe that it was.
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