The Seekers - Come The Day (1966)

It was on this album that all of the Seekers' varied attributes -- including Judith Durham's powerful vocals, the increasingly virtuoso-level playing (especially on the acoustic 12-string) and singing of Bruce Woodley, Athol Guy, and Keith Potger, and Woodley's burgeoning songwriting talent -- kicked in at their peak at the same time. The album opens with the title track, a Woodley original that's one of the best folk-style recordings to come out of the British Invasion and also one of the Seekers' (and Durham's) greatest performances, hers and the others' voices, coupled with their acoustic guitars, evoking the sound of bells chiming. A pair of Woodley collaborations with Paul Simon (dating from the latter's "English period"), "Red Rubber Ball" and the unfairly neglected "I Wish You Could Be Here," are also first-rate if not quite as overtly startling; and their covers of others' songs range across the spectrum, from the Springfields' classic "Island of Dreams" to a very formal yet soaring "Turn, Turn, Turn," and the Mamas & the Papas' "California Dreamin'," are mostly worthwhile -- the major exception is a too-dramatic rendition of "Yesterday," but it is made up for by their versions of the Gibson-Camp folk standard "Well, Well, Well," Doug Kershaw's "Louisiana Man," and Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind" (which is the best version this side of the Move's electric adaptation). On the American side of the Atlantic, the Tom Springfield/Jim Dale-authored movie song "Georgy Girl" overpowered a lot of these great moments and became the title track for the Capitol Records issue of the album. Come the Day was reissued in England during 1999 by EMI as part of the company's centennial celebrations, in a digipak format with both the stereo and mono mixes represented in an audiophile remastering.