The Bay City Rollers' ROLLERMANIA: A Hard D-A-Y's Night

 

Teen idols seem to have a built-in obsolescence, virtually guaranteeing a short career for any artist whose primary appeal is to a fickle preteen female market. For the self-consciously hip, the teen idol tag carries a stigma beyond easy redemption, and the artists who cater to this market risk being forever branded as uncool.

In this context, no band was less cool in the '70s than The Bay City Rollers, whose management went so far as to tout this harmless Scottish quintet as the “next Beatles.” That claim may seem ludicrous now (just as it did then), but the Rollers were nonetheless one of the biggest pop phenomena of the decade.

We'll dispense with the standard rap on The Bay City Rollers' tartan-clad teenybop image and all the hype. At this point, suffice it to say that the Rollers were an often-underrated, occasionally (if infrequently) terrific power pop group.

The Bay City Rollers began circa 1967 as an Edinburgh, Scotland cover band called The Saxons. The Saxons included brothers Alan and Derek Longmuir, on bass and drums respectively, with singer Nobby Clarke. That trio remained through various Saxons line-ups. Seeking a more American-sounding name, a pin was struck randomly into a map of the United States. The pin landed on Bay City, Michigan, and The Bay City Rollers were born.

The Bay City Rollers' first single, a cover of The Gentrys' "Keep On Dancing," became a # 9 British hit in 1971. But follow-up singles, including an early version of "Saturday Night," were comparative flops. By now, Clarke and the Longmuirs had been joined in Rollerdom by guitarists Eric Faulkner and Stuart "Woody" Wood. Clarke himself soon quit, to be replaced on lead vocals by Les McKeown.

The Rollers didn't play on any of their records until "Bye Bye Baby," a cover of The 4 Seasons' hit. Rollermania took Britain by storm, and was eventually exported to America via a new, McKeown-sung version of "Saturday Night" (a song which directly inspired the Ramones' own chanting "Blitzkrieg Bop," believe it or not).

The Rollers' recorded legacy is a mixed bag, offering a fair amount of drippy ballads and some bona fide rockin' pop. The debut album Bay City Rollers is notable mostly for "Saturday Night." Rock N' Roll Love Letter contains four of the group's best power pop tracks, "Money Honey," "Rock And Roll Love Letter," "Wouldn't You Like It" and "Too Young To Rock & Roll." "Wouldn't You Like It," in particular, is a dynamic power pop number that should have been a single.

Alan Longmuir was replaced by Ian Mitchell on Dedication. Produced by Raspberries veteran Jimmy Ienner, Dedication suffers from weak material, including very lame attempts at Beach Boys and Raspberries covers, but is redeemed by the rockin' Faulkner-Wood "Rock 'N Roller," a reasonably cool cover of Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want To be With You" and a superb reading of Vanda and Young's terrific "Yesterday's Hero." Mitchell then split after a scant six-month stint; his replacement, Pat McGlynn, didn't even stay that long.

As a quartet, the Rollers released the slick It's A Game album as an attempt to bridge the adult and teen markets, eschewing both standard teenybop ballads and power pop. Instead, it offers an unlikely melange of Manilowesque crooning, disco styling and even a cover of David Bowie's "Rebel, Rebel."  Greatest Hits represents the final cash-in at the end of the group's commercial reign. A perfunctory best-of, it includes the American singles, both hits and misses, but omits essential LP tracks "Wouldn't You Like It," "Too Young To Rock & Roll' and "Rock 'N Roller." Arista reissued it on CD in 1991.

In 1978 the group (with Alan Longmuir back in the fold) starred on NBC in a Saturday morning kiddie TV show produced by Sid and Marty Krofft and released the forgettable Strangers In The Wind. When the TV show ended, McKeown split.

Duncan Faure, formerly of the South African group Rabbit, was McKeown's replacement. The group changed its focus, dumped the tartan outfits and teen image, and shortened its name to simply The Rollers. Elevator was the result, the most aggressive-sounding album the group had made to date. Granted, there's nothing on Elevator to equal "Rock And Roll Love Letter," "Wouldn't You Like It" or "Yesterday's Hero," but it is far more consistently listenable than any other Rollers album. Key tracks include "Elevator," "Playing In A Rock And Roll Band," "I Was Eleven," "Turn On The Radio," "Instant Relay" and "Who'll Be My Keeper." The resulting sound could be compared to The Babys, or a more AOR-oriented version of The Records. If nothing else, it shows The Rollers as contenders, if not quite the next Beatles. It stiffed horribly, and was the last Rollers album issued in America.

The rare and little-heard Voxx was a contract-breaking set of odds and ends (if not sods), and it's pretty damned good. Ricochet follows in Elevator's footsteps, but is not quite its equal. I have never heard or seen the very rare, cassette-only Rollers album Burnin' Rubber, the soundtrack to a very obscure Rollers film.  The original group got back together in the mid-'80s for a reunion concert, and released one awful synth-dominated album, Breakout, and the 2-LP Live In Japan, before splitting yet again.  A later version of the group, still featuring Faulkner and Wood, released Bye Bye Baby, a pathetic collection of remakes of old Rollers tunes. It is surely not representative of how one might wish to remember The Bay City Rollers.

An attempted reunion in late 1999 ended badly, but did last long enough for the group to welcome 2000 with a live New Year's Eve concert in Glasgow.  Almost all of the original Rollers albums have been reissued on CD, with bonus tracks; there is also a solid Bay City Rollers career retrospective called The Definitive Collection, and a '70s Japanese concert preserved on a CD called Rollerworld.  Only Breakout, Burnin' Rubber, and Live In Japan remain unavailable.  McKeown, Wood, and Alan Longmuir reunited as The Bay City Rollers in 2015; Derek Longmuir has retired from music, and Eric Faulkner has not yet rejoined his former bandmates at this writing.

That neither The Bay City Rollers nor the just-plain Rollers were the next Beatles is hardly a startling revelation. Maybe they were the next Herman's Hermits, or the next Banana Splits. Who cares? No matter how many self-appointed arbiters of hip despised the Rollers, there were nonetheless others who thought they were... well, kinda neat. Dee Dee Ramone was a Rollers fan; according to Johnny Ramone, The Bay City Rollers were a much bigger influence on The Ramones' brand of pop-fueled punk than anyone would have ever thought likely. And Nick Lowe's "Rollers Show," whether parody or pastiche, had to have some affection behind it.

Evidence for the Rollers' case still survives in the grooves. A quick spin of "Wouldn't You Like It," "Yesterday's Hero," "Who'll Be My Keeper," "Too Young To Rock & Roll," "I Only Want To Be With You," "Rock 'N Roller," "Saturday Night," "Money Honey" and "Rock And Roll Love Letter" makes a convincing argument for The Bay City Rollers as power pop savants.

And, perhaps more importantly, there are thousands of grown-up little girls who will cherish a memory of The Bay City Rollers forever. For that, even by itself, The Bay City Rollers were cool.