The Seekers (who are still going as I write this in 2022) were unlikely to make it big in the mid-1960s, because they pretty much ignored the folk rock boom happening then and stayed hard-core folkies, though with a pop sense. The key to their success was their songwriting. Four of their original songs sold over a million copies worldwide, which was hard to do at the time even for one song. This has a mix of those catchy originals like "Georgie Girl" and traditional folk songs like "This Land Is Your Land" and "We Shall Not Be Moved."
As far as I can tell, four BBC studio sessions by the group survived, and are included here. None of that has been officially released, and I had to dig pretty deep to find them. A couple of songs were played in more than on session, but I've only included one version of each.
All the BBC songs combined make for only 24 minutes of music. That's rather short, plus a couple of key songs were missing, so I've added four more songs from other TV shows at the time. Two of them, "Red Rubber Ball" and "When the Stars Begin to Fall," are the only officially released songs here, coming from a rarities album called "Hidden Treasures, Volume 2."
Note that band member Bruce Woodley co-wrote three songs with Paul Simon, including "Cloudy," "Red Rubber Ball," and "I Wish You Could Be Here." A version of "Red Rubber Ball" is here, along with "Someday, One Day," a Simon song that he wrote for the Seekers and never recorded himself.
All the songs here sound very good. Despite the obscurity of these versions, they're on BBC transcription reels, which almost always have excellent sound quality. Many of the BBC sessions songs suffered from the usual problem of BBC DJs (and, as usual, specifically Brian Matthew) talking over some of the music. For all the songs with "[Edit]" in their names, I did the usual thing of applying the X-Minus audio editing program to wipe the talking while keeping the music.
The Seekers broke up in early 1968, so there's nothing here after 1967.
This album is 34 minutes long. If you ask me, I think this makes for a great "best of" collection. They brought their best songs to the BBC, and played them well, without strings and other unnecessary production touches sometimes heard on their albums.
01 A World of Our Own [Edit] (Seekers)
02 You Can Tell the World [Edit] (Seekers)
03 I'll Never Find Another You (Seekers)
04 Morningtown Ride [Edit] (Seekers)
05 This Land Is Your Land [Edit] (Seekers)
06 The Carnival Is Over (Seekers)
07 What Have They Done to the Rain [Edit] (Seekers)
08 We Shall Not Be Moved (Seekers)
09 Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen (Seekers)
10 Someday, One Day (Seekers)
11 Red Rubber Ball (Seekers)
12 When the Stars Begin to Fall (Seekers)
13 Georgie Girl [Edit] (Seekers)
14 Come the Day [Edit] (Seekers)
15 Mable Leaf Rag (Seekers)
https://www.upload.ee/files/15271427/TSeekrs_1965-1967_BBSessions_atse.zip.html
The cover photo dates to February 1965.
The group's songwriter was Bruce Woodley, not Tom. I guess you are confusing him with Tom Springfield (brother of Dusty Springfield), who also wrote and produced for the Seekers.
ReplyDeleteGood point, and yeah, I guess I was confused that way. I just fixed the mention.
DeleteThis is the only live Seekers I have ever seen, other than the few songs they did for the NME pollwinners' show. Thank you very much!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Paul, great post - really enjoyed listening to the album as one of The Seekers'biggest fans! I have the 3 TOTP radio sessions so I guess there's just one other I'm missing? Would there be any chance of letting me know the date of that 4th session and perhaps hearing it unedited please?
ReplyDeletePS, I've just realised that tracks 9 & 10 were upmixed to stereo by me! (from my YouTube channel! (Rich963) 👍😅
ReplyDeleteI'd appreciate knowing the sources of the other tracks though (as in dates & which show) Thanks again.
Thanks for sharing on YouTube. As for info, it's all there in the mp3 tag fields, for all the albums I post. Most music listening programs let you see that. But if you don't know how, here it is for this album:
Delete01 A World of Our Own [Edit] - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 4-13-1965
02 You Can Tell the World [Edit] - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 4-13-1965
03 I'll Never Find Another You - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 4-13-1965
04 Morningtown Ride [Edit] - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 5-7-1965
05 This Land Is Your Land [Edit] - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 5-7-1965
06 The Carnival Is Over - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 11-9-1965
07 What Have They Done to the Rain [Edit] - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 11-9-1965
08 We Shall Not Be Moved - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 11-9-1965
09 Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen - Unreleased, The London Palladium Show (British TV Show), Palladium, London, Britain, 3-19-1966
10 Someday, One Day - Unreleased, The London Palladium Show (British TV Show), Palladium, London, Britain, 3-19-1966
11 Red Rubber Ball - Hidden Treasures Volume 2 - The Rarities Collection (Expo 67, Montreal, Canada), 5-1967)
12 When the Stars Begin to Fall - Hidden Treasures Volume 2 - The Rarities Collection (Expo 67, Montreal, Canada), 5-1967)
13 Georgie Girl [Edit] - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 9-1967
14 Come the Day [Edit] - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 9-1967
15 Mable Leaf Rag - Unreleased, Top of the Pops, BBC, London, Britain, 9-1967
Thanks for the info Paul - sorry I didn't see the tags!
DeleteIs there a source for the BBC sessions that can be accessed? Also, is there video for the TOTP recordings? I hadn't heard these so many thanks for finding & posting them! I'd be very interested to hear about any sources you know of for TV & radio clips.
I'm sharing a bunch of raw BBC recordings via SoulseekQT. It's way too much for me to share here, but you can find it through that. I don't have all of them though, just some. And these aren't from the Top of the Pops TV show, just the Top of the Pops radio show. Very confusing, I know, but the BBC had two different things with the same name. So there's no video.
DeleteThanks for that Paul. Sorry, I realised that songs 1-8 were radio, but for some reason I thought 13 & 14 were from the TV show!
DeleteI've downloaded Soulseek, can you help by letting me know what to search for? I tried Seekers BBC Session but didn't find them.
Try searching for any of my files. I include the letters: atse with every album folder I share, so those pop up a lot. Once you find my files, you can search through them for BBC stuff. The folder I put what you're looking for is called: BBC - Top Of The Pops Transcriptions. So you could look for that too.
DeleteDoes it depend on whether you're online or not when I search? I tried both of your suggestions but with no result. I did find 2 Seekers songs from a BBC session posted by a user called BlindLemonPeel - I'm currently 104th in the queue to download them!
ReplyDeleteYes, it does. I'm logged in nearly 24/7. But there are different SoulseekQT networks, and you're not always connected to everyone at once. Sometimes, I can chat with someone inside SoulseekQT, and we're both obviously logged in, but we can't see each other's files at that moment. Things seem to rotate every couple of days.
DeleteAh, I see thanks. I seem to have found a whole load of your stuff (just downloaded ep1 of Hitch-hikers guide) but no sign of the Seekers one...
ReplyDeleteDid you find my account, or someone else's who is also sharing many of my albums? Cos some people do that. My account name is: albumsthatshouldexist
DeleteHi Paul, I've logged into Soulseek several times & found other users with some of your files, but I've never found you! Would it be possible at all to send the Seekers Raw BBC sessions via WeTransfer please?
Delete