Early Life
Durham was born to William Alexander Cock DFC, a navigator and World War II pathfinder, and his wife Hazel. From her birth until 1949, Durham spent summer holidays at her family's weatherboard house on the west side of Durham Place in Rosebud, which has been demolished. A myth has circulated that "Morningtown Ride" was prompted by these holidays and the nearby town of Mornington. However, Durham has stated that the song was written by American songwriter Malvina Reynolds and that the lyrics refer to sweet dreams rather than the Mornington Peninsula. Durham lived in Hobart, Tasmania, where she attended the Fahan School before moving back to Melbourne in 1956. In Melbourne she was educated at Ruyton Girls' School and, following matriculation, enrolled at RMIT.
Durham at first planned to be a pianist and gained the qualification of Associate in Music, Australia (AMusA), in classical piano at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium. She had some professional engagements playing piano and also had classical vocal training and performed blues, gospel and jazz pieces. Her singing career began one night at the age of 18 when she asked Nicholas Ribush, leader of the Melbourne University Jazz Band, at the Memphis Jazz Club in Malvern, whether she could sing with the band. In 1963 she began performing at the same club with Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers, using her mother's maiden name of Durham. In that year she also recorded her first EP, Judy Durham with Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers, for W&G Records.
Durham was working as a secretary at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency where she met account executive Athol Guy. Guy was in a folk group called the Seekers which sang on Monday nights at the Treble Clef, a coffee lounge on Toorak Road in Melbourne.
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