Lins Honeyman spoke at length to Ian Ramsden and Gordon Webster of '60s group THE CONCORDS

The Concords' music wasn't just getting played on home hi fi systems or at live gigs, as Gordon recalled. "I remember with the first LP, every morning on Radio Clyde they would play a Concords song at the Thought For The Day segment - usually something like 'I Have Met The Master' or that kind of thing. A friend from Renfrew said to me, 'I don't know if you know how much your music is being appreciated'. She worked in a factory as a supervisor and the radio was on all day. When one of our songs came on, everyone started singing along. She would ask them 'do you know what you're singing about?' and they would say they didn't but thought it was good music. There was our production on the radio every morning and people were waiting for it to come on."

Ian's opinion was that 'Soul Purpose' is the superior of the two Concords albums. "I feel that the first album is by far the better of the two because it had songs that we were playing all the time. The second album was supposed to be more sophisticated but the mix was all over the shop. 'A Turn For The Better' was meant to be a step up for us. The Beatles were doing things like 'Sgt Pepper' and we wanted to progress musically too. The first album sold well which meant Emblem Records were willing to get strings and brass players from the Scottish National Orchestra to play on the second record."

Gordon chipped in, "I just feel sorry that the final mix was all wrong. There's a lot on it that's very good and, if it had all been balanced correctly, it would have been a really great album." This was something that Ian certainly agreed with: "Leslie and I went through when they were mixing the album and they just wouldn't listen to us," he stated. "We'd say something was too loud or too strident but it didn't matter. I think the first album was recorded better and is the by far the best of the two. On the second album, the songs are a wee bit more sophisticated but it didn't quite work out."

The fact that the second album didn't sound as good as it should have done didn't mean the end of the band with the established line up recording the 'People Get Ready' single in 1969 before Leslie and Ian left for pastures new. "There's a song on 'A Turn For The Better' that Douglas wrote called 'Call Yourself A Christian' and, by that time, I was getting disillusioned with the attitudes of some of the people who were going to church," Ian admitted. "We started to see people in churches professing Christianity but judging others quite severely and that got right to the heart of me and I didn't want my friends being introduced to Jesus in that way. I did get very disillusioned with what I was seeing within the organised churches and religions because my faith is so fundamentally about love, forgiveness and being kind and I started to see an awful lot of places where that was absent. Leslie left first and we brought in a singer called Ian McLean and then I left in 1971 with Douglas' younger brother John replacing me on the drums and a young guitarist called Davy Jones joining the band a bit later. The new line up of the Concords with Gordon and Douglas still in it recorded another album but it was never released."

Gordon Webster and Ian Ramsden

"Some of the stuff on that album was off the wall," laughed Gordon before admitting that any trace of the recording is nowhere to be found. "I was allegedly left with the only copy of the album but I've no idea where it went to. I've approached John McLarty of Emblem Records to see if he had the original tapes but no joy. The album was definitely more experimental and there wasn't the same kind of story being told in the lyrics - we were more into repeating lyrics within the song so that people would remember a certain phrase when the song ended. That album never even had a name - I can still see it with its white label but who knows where it is now!"

"I don't think we were ready for that third album to be released," confessed Gordon. "We were still playing gospel music and trying to get venues that were away from the norm. Maybe we just weren't as confident of taking that next step stylistically. We were often accused of being too loud but that kind of went with the territory. The music we played really had to be played loudly and full guns blazing and, as we played some of our new material, I think we lost some of the audience along the way. As Ian's just said though, we wanted to move on. We didn't want to be playing in churches all the time - we wanted to take the message out there. We hadn't lost our sense of purpose - it's just that the music was changing."

I suggested that, whilst their purpose remained true, there must have occasionally been a temptation to stray away from singing solely Christian lyrics to cover some chart material of the day. "There was never any temptation to play mainstream songs," disagreed Ian. "When we were at our band practises, we would often play songs that were in the charts but never at a gig."

"We did hear about a Christian show band from Northern Ireland who were playing nightclubs and dances and earning quite a bit of money," Gordon recalled. "I have to admit that we found that quite tempting because it was hard when the bills came in as we weren't making an awful lot of money even though we were always busy. We went from hand to mouth a lot of the time."

"We couldn't have played nightclubs and places like that anyway because three of us were from the Nazarene where dances and the cinema were simply a no-no," replied Ian. "For the Church Of The Nazarene to even accept us playing drums and guitars was a big deal and to give us a space to practise and store our equipment was very much a leap of faith for them - as well as other folks in the Brethren and other denominations who really risked their own reputation for us. We're grateful to those folks as we were certainly the only band in Scotland doing what we were doing. As well as performing in Scotland, we would also get taken down to Sheffield, Workington and loads of other places to play. The people from Buzz Magazine put on a big concert in London in 1970 and had us down there for two weekends in a row playing alongside acts like Out Of Darkness and those things would never have happened otherwise."

With the band still holding a place of affection in many people's hearts, I asked Ian and Gordon to sum up how they would like their time with the Concords to be remembered. Gordon responded with careful consideration: "When I think about how I would like the Concords to be remembered, I feel quite touched and emotional because I'd never really thought of the band having a legacy as such. I suppose my first thought is that the whole thing was just a wonderful time for me. To join at 15 and to leave at 28, I'd come through all my teenage years relatively undisturbed not just because of the influence of the Lord but also because of guys like Ian and the group. Being in the Concords made my teenage years what they were. Whilst we had a responsibility as Christians, we also had a responsibility to each other in the group. People did enjoy the music at the time and maybe new people are discovering our work through the internet. I just hope that people realise that, within the songs, there's a message that could change their lives."

Ian added, "If people listen to the music now, I'd like them to think back to when it was recorded, put it in context and understand what these four guys were trying to do. If they understand that we were trying to go into the world and talk about the love of God, I think we'll have been successful. I think we can be quite proud of what we've done. To be of that age and to be a strong witness when it wasn't always easy hopefully showed other Christians our age that they could go out and be a witness too. Even if one person was persuaded to change their life for the better through hearing the message at one of our concerts then we would have achieved what we set out to do."

Gordon had the last word. "We weren't looking for any acknowledgement or praise back then and, even if the albums were to be rereleased today, we would just be happy that more people were listening to the message."

As we concluded the interview, the two of them had a surprise in store as Gordon took a CD-R from its case and popped it into his laptop. From the computer speakers came the hubbub of a live audience before the familiar strains of "Me-God" kicked in. Recorded live around 1970 by an audience member at a Concords high school gig and tracked down by Ian via the internet, there's a vibrancy and freshness to the band's sound that confirmed why the Concords were as popular as they were as a live act. As the song's final chord rang out and the crowd cheered, we all agreed that the legacy of the Concords is most definitely worth preserving.