Beat Group from Newark on Trent 1963-70

There was another group called The Koncords led by Terry Vernon working in the Chesire, Staffs, Manchester area in 1963-65 too. There was also another group called The Koncords working in Scotland in 1967.

Line up #1:
Jennifer Griffith – Vocals
Graham Cheseborough – Rhythm Guitar
John Cheseborough – Lead Guitar
Michael Brunton – Bass Guitar

Line up #2:
Jennifer Griffith – Vocals
Graham Cheseborough – Rhythm Guitar
John Cheseborough – Lead Guitar
Michael Brunton – Bass Guitar
David Marshall – Drums

Line up #3:
Graham Cheseborough – Rhythm Guitar
John Cheseborough – Lead Guitar
Johnny Hickman – Bass Guitar
David Marshall – Drums

The Koncords made their live debut in early December 1963 at Coddington Methodist Church which is on the edge of Newark-on-Trent. They had, in their younger days, been fomer Sunday School members. They played folk songs and negro spirituals. John Cheseborough was the oldest of the group and working for the Newark Corporation Parks Department. His younger brother Graham, Michael Brunton and Jennifer Griffith were all 14 and still at Hercules Clay Secondary School.

In 1961 a cross school project with a school in Fiji involved recordings being made to send over and Jennifer took part, recounting her thoughts on visiting the Methodist Mission House.

The three boys played guitars and Jennifer sang. John, who also played Banjo, had been teaching the boys guitar and the group had been practicing almost every night for six weeks. They would later add David Marshall on drums to become a five piece and extend their repetoire, in January 1964, being described as a Country and Western Vocal Group. They soon became regulars at the Brandon Social Club and Balderton Working Men’s Club and played mainly on the Notts / Lincs scene playing the music of The Beatles and Sandy Shaw among others.

Early in 1965 the group had an audition with Hughie Green’s Oportunity Knows ABC TV Programme. After this audition they were offered a continental tour of US Army and Air Force bases in Germany, Denmark and Holland paying $1,100 a month and an option of a three month extension to the tour. Their hopes were dashed when they unable to obtain work permits due to four of them being under eighteen, Jennifer being fifteen and the other three sixteen. Only John Cheseborough, 19, would have been able to get one.

By 1966 and 1967, the group found themselves playing more regular slots in Nottingham. The Cornhill, Cotgrave MW, The Springwater were some of these establishments and they were sometimes being described a ‘show band’. By early 1968 Johnny Hickman had replaced Michael Brunton on bass. They recorded for Radio Nottingham and this became a regular thing in the late sixties having their own half-hour show on BBC Radio Nottingham every Sunday. In these early days of Radio Nottingham recording sessions they used the Codolar studio run by Clive Gamble.

Partly from a Newark Advertiser article in 2009:
When two of the band members left (I assume Jennifer Griffith and Johnny Hickman) in March 1970, John and Graham Chesebrough and Dave Marshall carried on and were joined by other musicians over the years. They played in a group called Family Affair, which achieved a good reputation in the early 1970s. They travelled across the country and had a recording contract but never released any material. They were the warm-up act for Alan Price and Georgie Fame, the Barron Knights, The Swinging Blue Jeans, and The Hollies in the early 1970s.
They successfully auditioned for Opportunity Knocks but the television talent show hosted by Hughie Green was axed before they got to appear. Mr Graham Chesebrough said: “It was really unfortunate and bad timing for us.” He said after the members went their separate ways in the 1980s he lost interest in performing in a band.

NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS

Before the band

1961

The band start

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

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