The Bay City Rollers’ origins go back to a band called The Ambassadors which formed in Edinburgh in 1964. They then changed their name to The Saxons. It was under this name that they began to get noticed. The story goes that at that time they wanted a better name and liked the name The Rollers, but felt it needed something more and something particularly American. So band member Derek Longmuir threw a dart at a map of America. The first attempt landed in Arkansas which nobody like for a band name. The second throw landed near Bay City in Michigan and The Bay City Rollers were born. They would manage 12 UK chart hits, including the 2 number 1 hits, ‘Bye Bye Baby’ and ‘Give A Little Love’. In the US they had 8 hits with ‘Saturday Night’ topping the charts for them there. As the 70’s drew to a close, their popularity was declining and they went through major line up changes including recruiting SA’s own Duncan Faure who was just coming off the success of Rabbitt. They also shortened the band’s name to The Rollers, but this did not reverse their changing fortunes. Faure and Stuart Wood would go on to form local band Karu when The Rollers split up. Amongst the early line up of the Bay City Rollers were Billy Lyall and David Paton who would go on to form the band Pilot. Pilot would see an SA chart hit with the song ‘Magic’. Both had left The Bay City Rollers before the band saw their SA chart hits.
SA Singles Charts 