New Seekers 1973 Fan Convention

I was a New Seekers fan back in the 1970's - it seems a lifetime ago. I've worked through my old tapes, and found some things that might be of interest to New Seeker's fans. If anyone feels I'm infringing a copyright here, I can remove them, but by and large these are items that will not see the light of day ever again, and they are quite nostalgic to hear.

Please note that the quality of these items is not always very good. items were recorded with amateur equipment, and tapes have suffered a little damage too.

This is quite an interesting interview. I'm not sure of the Radio DJ - is it Johnny Walker? It was taken at the time of the first New Seekers split, in 1973. It is not quite complete - the interview cuts short, and the last record isn't known. Note that to avoid the downloads file being huge, and also containing copyrighted materials, i.e. songs, I've removed the New Seekers' selections from the audio. The interview asks Lyn and Marty to choose, on behalf of the group, 12 of their favourite tracks - but not from their own works.

I've split it into 3 - you will need an MP3 player - usually windows can play these back, otherwise download Winamp, or similiar.

Around Christmas 1973, I went with a friend to the New Seekers Fan convention, somewhere in London. I took a tape recorder, and the tape has been languishing in a corner, until I recently bought a reel to reel tape player, and sampled it back in. Although not hi-fi, the recording really isn't too bad, though I was stupid not to record all the songs, and I apologise for this. Some of these are present, some fragments too, but most of the group interviews are present, with them talking to Ed Stewart (Stewpot), picking raffle tickets and so on. The recording, from the audience, fairly near the front, and near some noisy people, captures the screaming and atmosphere, the humour - sometimes annoying audience voices, sometimes quite funny, sometimes annoying breaks in the recording. Note these sections end and start suddenly, sorry about that! All in all I am glad that after 30 years, I am able to share these recordings with fans.

Part 1. 5.9MB 17 minutes. Before the performance (Pinball wizard from a record). Crowd announcements, Ed Stewart introduces Peter Oliver. Embarrassing moments personal tastes. Silver disc award.

Part 2. 1.4MB 6 minutes. Fragment of record-played music. Lyn Paul. Her swans. Makeup, hair, embarrassing moments. Very funny!

Part 3 7.21 MB 31 minutes. Lyn Paul continued.. contact lenses, vital statistics, driving test. Silver disc, "Find another fool" on record (fragment). Paul Layton interview - questions, raffle picking, favourite TV and comedian. Record fragment. Eve Graham interview - embarrassing questions, washing hair, fave drinks, preferred countries.

Part 4 2.64MB 11 minutes. Marty introduced. Much screaming! Vegetarianism, yoga, preferences, long hair, song writing. Silver disc award.

Part 5 0.9MB 4 minutes. Ed Stewart's build up to concert performance. Fragments of live concert: Beg Steal and Borrow (complete), Look what they've done (partial). Marty introduces each member. Teach world to sing (tiny bit)

Part 6 4.1MB 17 minutes. "When I was small" almost complete (Peter and Lyn), large song fragment "My sweet lord". Marty? introduces some rock and roll - some marvellous wild guitar by the group (or backing?) - fragmentary. Jailhouse Rock-complete. Lyn asks crowd if alright. Marty introduces We've got to do it now (no song). Lyn and the others with the Viper skit (funny!). Group asks the audience about "You won't find another fool" - song missing, sorry. Ed Stewart introduces the final section. Eve & Lyn introduce John Franklin(guitar) and Dave Richards (Drummer) - and thank Ed Stewart. Marty thanks audience for coming, despite travel difficulties (Industrial action in UK) Pinball Wizard (fragment)

A small bit which preceded the New Seekers singing "You won't find another fool" - is this Lulu? Fraid the piece deteriorates towards the end, and stops before the actual song.

A TV concert, unidentified, from around '72 - worth hearing for subtle variations. Low quality, because taped using a microphone.

My Sweet Lord/Day by Day Very close to the album version - notice how Peter doesn't do the extra-high "love me more dearly" towards the end.

I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing. Sorry about the drop out at the beginning. Quite close to the studio version, but with a non-fade ending, which is quite interesting to hear.

Another (different?) tv recording, also unknown, and very bad quality, almost unlistenable, and with the beginning missing - sorry! I almost didn't put this up, but oh well. Beautiful People

Well only two so far.. See my other colourizing (if you are interested) by clicking here.

Since there seems little hope that the New Seekers original albums will be released as CD's, I've started trying to make a reasonable CD cover for each matching album. I'm doing them high resolution, so when they are printed with a modern photo printer, they will look quite good. I'm using a scanner, rather than a camera, since I don't have one! This is giving problems lining things up, but it does mean the scans can be a very high resolution.

The dimensions of a CD are different to an album - not simply the size reduction which can be a problem with details being too small, but also their width is bigger than their height. The fun is therefore to make a similar cover, but move things around so nothing vital is lost, and yet make the cover look like it might have appeared if really produced as a CD.

Note - the documents have precisely defined sizes, so in theory you shouldn't need to worry about sizing to different printers. Use decent quality inkjet paper for a good result.

To use I recommend right click and choose save as. You can then open the saved documents in Word.

1) We'd Like To Teach the World To Sing. About 2 megs download. The zip file contains documents that ought to print to the right size automatically (the dimensions are set to absolute values. Front and back are supplied, and can be cut and folded to exactly fit a CD case. Trick: use a ruler, and score along the edges with a sharp knife. As an exercise, try to work out where the changes are! This is a single download as a zip, which contains front and back.

2) The Now album. Very pleased with this one. Had to mess about getting it right. Note: these are document files, ready to be printed from word. As they are high definition, they are large (several megs) but worth it to have a nice CD jewel case.

Front of CD case (document contains guides to cut out)

Back of CD case (document contains the side parts too, ready to fold) Some blurb was removed, and the track names enhanced for readability.

This comes out much better than this looks here! This file is suitable only for an Epson R200 (which can print directly to CD).

3) A new album! "The Unpublished" Well, I decided the extra bits and pieces I'd been given on a CD would like nice in their own album cover, so I made one up. The front images were captured from the Albert Hall performance, and don't exist anywhere else, and the rear ones moved and modified from another album to give the group member's heads a sort of peek-a-boo appearance. The logos were adapted from another album, and new colours (no pun intended!) applied. My own copy of this has a track listing on the rear, but I figured if others wanted to make their own compilations, they could write over the blank area in Word, or by hand. No CD image for this one. The downloads are, as before, doc files ready to be printed at a fair resolution. I've made it easy to add text to the bit in the middle. Simply open the document, click on the middle bit, and write your own text in - change fonts to make it to your own needs.

	The rear and sides. score along the side lines with a knife against a ruler then fold. Place under the CD tray.
	The front section slides nicely under the CD front cover.

4. Pinball Wizards. This is an American album, with a scattering of songs from different UK albums, and some more obscure. Personally, I thought the front of the original album rather dire, it looked like they'd cut out the group from some other backdrop and just put a mud-coloured background in. The quality of the photos were poor, too dark, and with an unpleasant red tint on the rear. Also see if you can spot the photographer's finger!! How on earth was this mistake not spotted? I've changed the background on the front, adjusted the colour hues on the back, and resized to be ready for a CD jewel case. Once again the pictures below are just for reference, they link to actual word documents. Print them on nice shiny photo paper for a good result. Oh and I have the Epson R200 CD picture. I've not uploaded it, email me if you want it, it looks nice.

5. Together

A little bland this album cover. Don't see why the rear images were black and white, and the flowers unfilled. Anyway, it looks quite good in a CD case. One single zip file with both documents inside. CD image for Epson available - looks nice. Ask if you need it.

6. Come Softly To Me

Nice to find this album, since it was from the USA and has a similiar look to the Circles album, although was in a standard rectangular style. Some great tracks on this album too - Unwithered Rose, Goin' Back and the very catchy Rain.

The shadow effect on the cover's front looked a lot better than it did when I printed it, but the photo is pretty clear. The rear photo had some kind of a discolouration - perhaps it was taken with a filter, or my album's off-colour, anyhow I adjusted the hue to remove the yellow tinge. I simplified the back - when you're looking at your CD, you just need a track list.

This looks better than the cut-down images might suggest. I have a fairly nice Epson R200 CD image for this album too, contact me for it.

7. New Colours (UK)

I found this New Colours album in a charity shop, a good copy with almost perfect cover. Although I once owned this, I only had in my posession the inferior American version which has different tracks and a poorer cover (If you compare the two you will find the original photo was clipped - Marty's sleeve is chopped in two, and so is Paul's arm)

For this artwork (click above to get 2 Megs zip file), I used a digital camera for the first time. This meant I didn't need to spend too long shoving around bits of the image to make things fit. I didn't bother putting on a CD logo, what's the point really... Although the scanner provides sharper images, the result is quite pleasing. I've manually created the track list - there was way too much blurb on the original anyway, and on a CD, the space is limited.

Here's a fairly nice CD file for Epsons that can do CD printing..(Large file!) Looks nicer than this scan of the CD might suggest.

8. Live at the Albert Hall (UK Double Album)

My own copy of this isn't perfect, but good enough for now. I thought the front of the CD might look nice if it were the inner section of the original cover, without the blurb about the theatre. I then "restored" the hidden sides. For the rear, the text was too small when captured directly, so I plonked new text over the top in CD form. Unfortunately my own recordings don't match the track list, but that can be fixed. I took pictures from the insides and colourized them, placing them on the back, and removing various bits of junk, and putting on a fresh New Seekers logo, with a smear of light applied to make it shiny. The colourizings aren't too bad, but the source material is a bit lacking, rather grainy photos. Eve looks a little faded, but quite pleased with the results overall. The CD top image is shown, and can be emailed to anyone with suitable means to use an EC3 file (Epson). Its image was culled from the album, and mirrored in all directions to flood the whole area, and it works well enough.

An amazing resource for information about Lyn's career, and the New Seekers, with all record releases covered, and all iterations of the band over the years.

This is a black and white photo of Lyn Paul taken from the yahoo group site. Not too bad a job, but limited because of original image size (bigger, and higher resolution would work better).	This picture of Peter Doyle, aged 14, or so, derives from a black and white image from the excellent Peter Doyle website http://www.peterdoylewebsite.net