The Seekers

This is the world's first Enseeklopedia - a treasure trove of stories, music analysis, and rare memorabilia. Moreover, it is a long overdue salute to Australia's Fab Four and their enduring recording catalogue.

In tracing contemporary Australian music, history will recall the four young Melbourne musicians who started the ball rolling internationally for every big-name Australian artist who would follow in their footsteps. Folk and gospel group The Seekers - featuring the golden voice of Judith Durham, Athol Guy, Keith Potger, and Bruce Woodley - set sail for the UK in 1964 on a working holiday, totally unaware of the global fame and fortune that lay ahead. Chart-topping hits, gold and platinum record awards, sold-out tours, and record-breaking crowds in the '60s, and again in the reunion years since 1993.

In this publishing first, renowned Australian authors Christopher Patrick (ABBA: Let The Music Speak) and Graham Simpson (The Judith Durham Story Colours Of My Life) have joined forces to produce the first-ever Seekers coffee table book - an in-depth and highly informative look at the recording history of Australia's first supergroup.

Their forensic analysis of every song The Seekers recorded in the 50 years between 1963 and 2013 sits comfortably with peeks behind the scenes, never-before-revealed facts, fascinating trivia, and a kaleidoscope of photos and memorabilia - much of it never seen before. With a good tour guide, you see so much more when you know what you're looking at; Chris has approached The Seekers' song list from a musician's perspective, undressing every song the group ever recorded to reveal the vocal and instrumental craft at play. Graham has brought to the coffee table his penchant for fascinating Seekers minutiae, and an archive of memorabilia gathered from all over the world over five decades.

The Seekers were the very first group to put Australia on the international music map, and they will be forever known for knocking The Kinks, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones off the top of the UK charts, and The Monkees from the Number One spot on the American charts with their global phenomenon, the Academy Award-nominated song "Georgy Girl." They were clean-cut, clean-living Aussie youths when the rollercoaster began; their music was wholesome and free of gimmicks.

The Seekers came, sang, and conquered in the Sixties, yet the footprint they left on the international music map is as indelible today as it was half a century ago. If you have a favourite Seekers musical memory, it's in this book. If you want to know who played what; or how they got that sound; or who Pierrot and Columbine were - this is the book for you. If you like the photography and artwork of the Sixties, then you'll love the images captured by some of the top pop photographers of the era, and the many obscure record covers from every corner of the globe.

Why were there two different versions of several songs? How did a sad song called "Downhearted Blues" turn into the chart-topper "A World Of Our Own"? And who sneezes at the end of the 1967 recording of "Myra"? It's in here.