W.O.C.K On Vinyl: The Seekers - We Saw It All With Trans Tours - Promo 45 (1976)

 Before things get too serious here at Rock On Vinyl, I thought it might be fun to post a song / album at the end of each month, that could be categorized as being either Weird, Obscure, Crazy or just plain Korny.

In 1975, Bruce Woodley reunited with the Seekers (who had undergone a short hiatus when Judith Durham left the band), composed of fellow original members Athol Guy and Keith Potger, and 23-year-old Dutch-born Louisa Wisseling (a semi-professional folk singer formerly with Melbourne band The Settlers). In a February 1975, a newspaper article appeared about the group’s reunion, Louisa revealed that Bruce had approached her at a 1974 Settlers concert at Ferntree Gully’s Swagman Restaurant with an offer to join the group, and she originally turned him down.

The new group recorded two albums and a number of singles, some of which, like “The Nimble Song” and “I Saw It All With Trans Tours” (both written by Woodley) reflected the boys’ other careers in advertising. Woodley’s composition “The Sparrow Song” became the group’s biggest 1970s hit and remains to this day the highest-charting Seekers single written by a member of the group.

Other tracks he contributed to this line-up included “Giving and Takin'” (the title track of their second album), “Can We Learn to Get Along” (which began life as a solo recording for the TV documentary series Shell’s Australia, and was released by Bruce on flexi-disc), “Reunion”, “Country Ros”, “Standing on Shaky Ground” (featuring Bruce on vocals which he felt were too low for him, but were impossible for Louisa to sing for the same reason), and “The Rose and the Briar”.

The Seekers also released a promo single for the Trans Tours corporation in 1976 to assist with the promotion of their cruise destinations to New Zealand and Fiji. The EMI double sided single was entitled "We Saw It All With Trans Tours" with the A-Side's lyrics customised for the New Zealand market and the B-Side's for Fiji. Both songs written by Bruce Woodley and both feature the Seekers trademark harmony sound. Although not documented, I would guess that the Seekers may have worked aboard on some of these early cruises to help promote their own reunion. If any blog followers who may have used Trans Tours back in the 70's could confirm this, I would love to hear from you.

In 1977, Bruce Woodley left the group and was replaced by Buddy England. He continued to focus on song-writing and advertising, producing many TV jingles including one for Courage beer. His first, back in 1971 was a solo (advertising) single called “The ANZ Bank Travelling Man” (previously posted HERE ), and was given out free to employees of that institution as part of the promotion. [extract from apumone.com]

This month's WOCK post features a 45 that I found buried in amongst a pile of records at my local flee market, that I suspect was sourced from a deceased estate. The 45 was in pristine condition, although it was housed in a white jacket and was missing the distinct orange cover (shown above). I only paid $1 for this prize find.  There are currently 2 copies for sale on eBay selling for $60-$67 respectively. Due to the specific purpose of the single and its limited pressing, it certainly ticks the Obsure box for this month's WOCK on Vinyl posting.   Ripped to FLAC and includes label scans.

Seekers Trans Tours Promo Single Link (39Mb)