New Seekers singer kept vices secret to protect her fans

Eve Graham's group had a string of top ten hits and sold more than 25 million records worldwide. The Perth vocalist, 67, sang the Coca-Cola jingle I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, which shot to No 1 in the charts in 1971 after the group recorded it as a single.

But she has revealed that her clean-living public image was kept up to protect the group's fans, many of whom were not yet in their teenage years.

"I did drink and I did smoke for a while - but I never ever had a photograph taken," she said.

"I don't think of that as being hypocritical, but I was 30-odd and our fans were round about 12. I think if I'd had a cigarette and a drink, I just don't think that would have been very good."

Eve grew up in Auchterarder in Perthshire, but much of the New Seekers' success came in the United States. Asked whether she took to the American lifestyle, she added: "I wasn't going to get into the real craziness. People say 'is it really sex, drugs and rock'n'roll?', I say 'oh yeah'.

"But it is what you want it to be. I was still able to party and join in, but I never really wanted to get that crazy. I think a lot of people ruin it for themselves."

• New Seekers: Neverending story of success for clean-living pop group

Eve also revealed how Coca-Cola chose her for the "Hilltop" commercial because of her Scottish tones. She said: "Coca-Cola had wanted a major international campaign and they wanted an artist for the lead vocal who had an international reputation.

"We were well-known in the States, but we weren't an American group and I didn't sing with too much of an American accent.

"So they'd already decided that the lead singer was going to be Eve Graham before they'd even put together the commercial. It's still the biggest commercial they have ever had."

I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing shot to No 1 in 1971 and earned the New Seekers a Grammy nomination. In a UK poll in 2005, the song was voted the best-ever for a TV commercial.

But remarkably, Eve said they only recorded the song as a single as an afterthought, because the advert was so popular.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's My Life in Five Songs, to be broadcast tomorrow, she said: "That song was one of about 12 we did in the studio the first time round and I can't think that that one stood out.

"When you are in the studio, you do tend to concentrate on the one that's in front of you. So I don't really remember recording the commercial.

"It was only afterwards it became so popular - as soon as they started to broadcast it on radio they were getting calls in, 'what is this song?' At that stage it was only a minute long, as it was just a commercial.Dave McKay - who was our producer through all the hits and is still my record producer - said, 'Do you think we should try and make a record of this, because another group has put it together and issued it because it is so popular'.

"So we went back in to the studio - we were still in New York, where we'd done the commercials - did the full-length version of the song and it just shot straight up the charts."

The New Seekers recorded a string of hits and even came second in the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest, held in Edinburgh, with the song Beg, Steal or Borrow.

Eve returned to Scotland in 2004 and lives in Perthshire with her husband Kevin. She continues to perform and in 2006 released an album The Mountains Welcome Me Home, featuring a mixture of New Seekers tracks and old and new Scottish songs.

• My Life in Five Songs is on BBC Radio Scotland tomorrow at 3:30pm.