1964-1965

As the second part of a five-volume series presenting most of the Seekers' recordings, the 28 tracks on 1964-1965 find them shifting from their purer folk roots to a slightly more pop-friendly sound, though they do still sound much like an Australian Peter, Paul & Mary on much of the set. It should be said that this disc might make more sense in the context of the whole series than it does on its own, for the simple reason that it doesn't actually include their most famous 1965 releases, the hit singles "I'll Never Find Another You," "A World of Our Own," and "The Carnival Is Over." (Those are on the volume titled Hits, B-Sides & the 90's). Nonetheless, the CD does contain much of their less-celebrated work from the time they ascended to international fame, including everything from their 1965 albums Hide & Seekers and A World of Our Own (except, ironically, "A World of Our Own" itself). Filling out the program are five songs from their first album for the World Record Club label; the rest of the tracks from that LP are on the first volume of this series, 1963-1964. While some of this is rather bland stuff rooted in the tamer side of the early-'60s folk revival, other tracks show them moving into more rhythmic, contemporary sound and arrangements, as well as into more contemporary material by composers like Bob Gibson, Malvina Reynolds, Bob Dylan, and the Seekers' own Bruce Woodley (whose "Two Summers" in particular sounds almost strong enough to have merited release as a single). Too, on a few of the Hide & Seekers cuts they experimented with string arrangements and solo vocals by Judith Durham, though it would be a modified version of their original acoustic-driven sound that would bring them success. It's too bad EMI didn't bother to include original release dates in the track listings, though the liner notes are okay. 1964-1965 was included as one of the discs in Australian EMI's Complete Seekers box set, which contains all five volumes of the series. Note that the version of "Morningtown Ride" included here is not the one from their 1966 hit single, but an earlier recording of the song from Hide & Seekers. ~ Richie Unterberger