After the Australian group called The Seekers split in 1969, the singer Keith Potger went on to form
The New Seekers in the UK in which the early group members included Eve Graham, Marty Kristian, Chris Barrington and Sally Graham.
Only a year later the
line up was changed to include Eve
,Marty and now joining the group was
Lyn Paul, Peter Doyle and Paul
Layton, who scored a 1970 hit with Look What They Done To My Song Ma, which charted high in the U.S.
and failed to make the Top Thirty in the UK.
The album Beautiful People in 1971 gave The New Seekers their first British Top Ten hit with Never Ending Song Of Love. David Mackay was the producer on this hit, and would be the main producer for The New Seekers going forward. David was also part responsible for the Coca Cola Commercial I'D Like To Teach The World To Sing.
Lyrics to
Never Ending Story Of Love.
It was in December 1971 that the Coca Cola Commercial became a huge hit for the group
.I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony), and the song came about after a few arguments after a flight into Ireland, and as soon as people were given Coca Cola the arguing stopped. Roger Cook noticed this and wished they could buy the whole world a coke. The commercial was born, and The New Seekers changed the lyrics and it was a global hit.
In march 1972 The New Seekers scored a big UK hit again with
Beg Steal or Borrow which was also the
Eurovision Song Contest entry in 1972.It came second that year.
In June 1972 the group had a number four hit with a sweet
singalong hit called
Circles written by Harry Chapin from his album Sniper and Other Love Songs, and Harry died in 1981.
Lyrics to
Circles.
Still in November of that year they managed to squeeze into the Top Twenty with the hit
Come Softly To Me which dates way back to 1959 and was a hit for The Fleetwoods.
In February 1973 the group charted again with
Pinball Wizzard See Me Feel Me which was written by the Who's Pete Townsend and was a hit for the Who in 1969. The film Tommy made the song popular again, and The New Seekers made a great cover of it. The song and film was about
Tommy, who was blind, but was still great at playing the arcade games.
Two more singles
followed, but they failed to enter the top forty, but this was only a short gap in the
hits of the group, as there next hit would become their second huge No. 1.
You Wont Find Another Fool Like Me and was the first single that Lyn Paul was the lead voice on a hit single. The song was co-written by Tony
Macaulay who also wrote Marmalade's hit Falling Apart At The Seams and
David Soul's Don't Give Up On Me Baby. The other writer was Geoff
Stephens, who wrote another David Soul hit Silver Lady.
It was in March 1974 that they had a follow up single called
I Get A Little Sentimental About You from the album Together.
Peter Doyle died in 2001 of throat cancer.
