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Her voice was unique and pure honey. Judith Durham achieved lasting fame as the lead vocalist for the Australian harmony folk/gospel/pop group The Seekers, formed by bass player Athol Guy and guitarists Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley. With more than 50 million record sales, The Seekers became the first Australian music organisation to score on the charts of both Britain and the U.S..

Judith was the daughter of William Alexander Cock DFC and his wife Hazel Durham. She spent her early childhood in Essendon, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. A gifted musician from the outset, she graduated with a degree (A.Mus.A.) in classical piano from the Melbourne University Conservatorium. She also took to playing classic jazz, blues and ragtime standards and was said to have excelled at the latter. Aged 19, Judith joined Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers, an outfit led by a Melbourne trombonist who liked to blend folk music with jazz. At that time, she made her first EP record. While singing with various bands, Judith made ends meet by working as a pathologist's assistant and then as an advertising secretary. Enticed by Athol Guy (who was then an account executive), Judith agreed to join The Seekers, then performing at the Treble Clef coffee lounge. In 1964, the quartet sailed to England, their agent securing gigs for them in nightclubs and theatres. They also performed at the Palladium alongside Dusty Springfield, whose brother Tom wrote the first big Seekers hit "There'll Never Be Another You". The remainder of the decade brought many more chart-topping numbers, including "The Carnival is Over" (in 2002 ranking as No.30 in the UK Top 100 Best-Selling Singles Of All Time), Colours of My Life" (which was co-written by Judith), "A World of Our Own", "Someday One Day", "Morningtown Ride" and --their biggest hit -- "Georgy Girl", which was used as the title theme for the quintessential swinging sixties movie of that name, starring Lynn Redgrave and James Mason.

In mid-1968, The Seekers disbanded after Judith decided to go free-lance. Having teamed up with the London-based pianist and musical director Ronald Edgeworth (who became her husband in 1969) and setting up home in Queensland, she signed with A&M Records and released several successful albums between 1970 and 1974. Bowing to pressure from her many fans, Judith rejoined Guy, Potger and Woodley in 1992 for a hugely successful Silver Jubilee Tour. This was followed by similar encores in 2002, 2003 and 2012 (marking The Seekers' 50th birthday) and many solo tours of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

In 1990, Judith founded her own production company Musicoast, based in South Yarra, Victoria. In 1995, The Seekers became inductees into the Australian Record Industry Association's (ARIA) Hall of Fame. Judith was awarded the Medal of the Order Of Australia (OAM) for her services to music. She later also received the Centenary Medal from the Governor General. The Seekers received further accolades in the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours by being individually named Officers of the Order of Australia.

Following the death of her husband in 1994, Judith became a National Patron of the Motor Neurone Disease Association of Australia (MNDAA). She herself suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2013 which impaired her ability to read and write - but not her singing. On August 5 2022, she passed away from complications due to a long-standing chronic lung disease at a Melbourne hospital, aged 79.

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