BAY CITY ROLLERS - cult band of the 70s!
In reference to the Beatlemania of the 60s, the word Rollermania was coined to describe the enthusiasm surrounding the five Scots.
Alan Longmuir (born on June 20, 1953) and his brother Derek Longmuir (born on March 19, 1948, but made himself five years younger and gave 1953 as his year of birth) founded the group Ambassadors in 1967 - just 14 (19!) and 12 years old. They later changed their name to Saxons. To change their name again, they threw a dart at a map of America and it got stuck in Bay City, Michigan, not far from Detroit, on Lake Huron. It's a good thing they didn't use a map of Germany, because what would have become of the Bay City Rollers if the needle had gotten stuck in the Harz Mountains? In addition to the Longmuir brothers, the original quintet includes Leslie McKeown (born on November 12, 1955), Stuart 'Woody' Wood (born on February 25, 1957) and Eric Faulkner (born on October 21, 1955). They were all born in Edinburgh and proudly emphasize their Scottish homeland by wearing large checked clothing, which quickly becomes their trademark and is quickly copied by their fans. In English, tartan is called tartan and so the outfit of the five Rollers is called the tartan look. BRAVO has been supplying their star cutout in 33 parts from issue 43 in 1975. There is also a 5-part series from issue 29 as well as numerous cover photos and posters. At that time, their fan clubs already had 150,000 registered members worldwide. In 1975 and 1976 the Rollers won group gold in the OTTO election and in 1977 they added a silver trophy.
In 1971 they had a Top 10 hit in England with their first single, "Keep On Dancing"; in 1972 they won the Radio Luxembourg Grand Prix with "Mañana". Their actual hit career lasted from 1975 to 1977 ( eleven BRAVO Musicbox entries ), apart from one BRAVO chart entry each in 1978 and 1979 (as The Rollers). In 1975 something unprecedented happened in the English charts: The Bay City Rollers (BCR for short) took the first two places in the album charts. In BRAVO , seven of the eleven songs mentioned above occupied the number one spot for a total of 30 weeks between 1975 and 1977. The most successful title is "It's A Game" which spent eleven weeks at the top.
The musicians, led by their manager Tam Paton, managed to make a mark in this relatively short time that has remained with their fans to this day. Paton applied the 'hire and fire' principle to the band members, and a constant interplay of band members was the result. To make matters worse, the rumor that the Rollers could not play their instruments themselves persists to this day. The fact is that only the first album ("Rollin'") and the previously unknown singles were recorded by studio musicians. If you want to see for yourself that the band members could play their instruments, we recommend the CD "Rollerworld - Live At The Budokan 1977", released in 2000.
In 1976 they turned their backs on Europe and landed a top 1 hit in the USA with »Saturday Night« and were also very successful in Japan. After that, nobody in Europe really wanted to hear them anymore. Their star quickly began to fall again. In 1978, »Where Will I Be Now« was released, the last single as Bay City Rollers , which reached number 38 in Germany for one week. After shortening the name to The Rollers and completely changing their image to rock, three more albums followed, but they no longer attracted any attention.Paton ripped off his protégés when signing their contracts. This led to heated arguments among the band members, some of which continue to this day. In addition, the Rollers are still involved in a decades-long legal battle with their record company Arista , which is now part of the BMG group , to clarify where the royalties from the estimated 70 to 120 million records sold actually went!
Tam Paton, who had neither the class of Brian Epstein (Beatles) nor the extravagance of Malcolm McLaren (Sex Pistols), will have gotten his share. He lived a life of luxury near Edinburgh, while the former members of the Rollers still had to tour - in changing line-ups - to get a few euros in the coffers! In 2009, Tam Paton died and left a tens of millions of euros - to his dogs.
Les McKeown, singer of the band, was still very successful in Japan after he left the band in 1978. In 1988, he managed to gain some brief attention again in collaboration with Dieter Bohlen. He provided a song for the successful ZDF series " Rivals of the Racetrack ". Les died in London in 2021 at the age of 65 after Alan Longmuir had already succumbed to the effects of a viral infection in 2018.