Australian folk music barely existed as a global force. Then, in the space of a decade, four Melbourne women took on the world: Diana Trask, who was nurtured by Frank Sinatra; Helen Reddy; Durham; and Olivia Newton-John.
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There was kinship between them. Newton-John used to see Durham sing in Melbourne as a teenager; it was Reddy, riding high on her I’m Woman anthem, which encouraged Newton-John to move to the US.
It was a kind of brotherhood. Fittingly, Durham, Reddy and Newton-John were the first three inductees into the Australian Women in Music Honors List established in 2018.
But to hear Durham tell it, she never considered herself a trailblazer. She was plagued by insecurity, especially about her weight. But I knew there was something special about that voice.
He grew up in Essendon and started early.
“The mother prayed to the Lord that when her children were born they would not be deaf,” Durham said.
“My sister, Beverley is also a professional singer. So instead I had two girls who both had perfect pitch and neither one was deaf. Mum says, by the age of two, I was singing my little songs ; she didn’t know where she heard it, so I must have made it up.
Musical magic happened when he joined forces with three Melbourne musicians: Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley. Musical superstardom – topping the charts in Australia, the UK and the US, even knocking The Beatles off the No.1 spot – made them our first genuine global superstars.
It’s a fan affection that has never waned, especially for Durham, whose later convictions included a car crash in 1990 and a brain hemorrhage during a Seekers tour in 2013.
To know her was to be seduced by a warmth, a charm, a smile and a laugh that were proof of her refusal to be swayed by the slings and arrows of life. In recent years, he had lived in a small but comfortable unit in a retirement village in Brighton, where a piano took up much of the living room.
Durham won a lifetime achievement award at the Australian Women In Music Awards in 2019. Credit: Paul Jeffers
When I spent an afternoon with her there in 2019, she told me that she hadn’t sung in a while.
A lung condition he had suffered from since childhood restricted his movement and made it impossible to travel.
He had to know, “Is the voice still there?”
“I think so,” he said. “I’ve never been able to sing.”
She refused to feel sorry for herself. And when he expressed his wonder at the long love affair he had shared with the Aussies, you knew he meant it.
The Seekers, L-R: Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley, Judith Durham and Athol Guy.
Everything was a blessing.
“I see myself through other people’s eyes,” she said. “A lot has happened to me.”
She laughed at that euphemism, and then continued, “But because of my outlook on life, because I’ve had a spiritual basis for my life, [it’s about] seeing it all as a blessing in disguise. If you take away the adversity, you have lost the blessings.
“It is very important. acceptance It is not always easy to accept something, but it is very important. Perhaps this has come as a blessing in disguise? I’ll just wait and see what happens. Every day brings something different.”
He leaves us, sadly after the carnival, as an example of courage and grace.
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