Judy Durham
| Judith Durham | |
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Durham in 1970
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Judith Mavis Cock |
| Born |
3 July 1943 Essendon, Victoria, Australia |
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| Years active | 1962–present |
| Associated acts |
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| Website | www |
Judith Mavis Durham AO (born Judith Mavis Cock; 3 July 1943) is an Australian singer and musician who became the lead singer for the Australian popular folk music group The Seekers in 1963. The group subsequently became the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States, and have sold over 50 million records worldwide. Durham left the group in mid-1968 to pursue her solo career. In 1993, Durham began to make sporadic recordings and performances with The Seekers, though she remains primarily a solo performer. On 1 July 2015, she was named Victorian of the Year for her services to music and a range of charities.
Durham was born Judith Mavis Cock in Essendon, Victoria, to William Alexander Cock DFC, a navigator and World War II pathfinder, and his wife, Hazel (née Durham). From her birth until 1949, Durham spent summer holidays at her family's weatherboard house on the west side of Durham Place in Rosebud, which since has been demolished. A myth has circulated that "Morningtown Ride" was prompted by these holidays and the nearby town of Mornington. However, Durham has stated that the song was written by American songwriter Malvina Reynolds and that the lyrics refer to sweet dreams rather than the Mornington Peninsula. Durham lived in Hobart, Tasmania, where she attended the Fahan School before moving back to Melbourne in 1956. In Melbourne, she was educated at Ruyton Girls' School and then enrolled at RMIT.
Durham at first planned to be a pianist and gained the qualification of Associate in Music, Australia (AMusA), in classical piano at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium. She had some professional engagements playing piano and also had classical vocal training and performed blues, gospel and jazz pieces. Her singing career began one night at the age of 18 when she asked Nicholas Ribush, leader of the Melbourne University Jazz Band, at the Memphis Jazz Club in Malvern, whether she could sing with the band. In 1963, she began performing at the same club with Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers, using her mother's maiden name of Durham. In that year she also recorded her first EP, Judy Durham with Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers, for W&G Records.
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