#Derek and Alan Longmuir

[u-friend-or-ufo]

The band been sleeping together..

[winenwind]

I’ll save you Alan. Back off cactus man 🌵

[icantbelieveitsnotrock]

Bay City Rollers // Lovely to See You

[scarlettapril]

Needed something with a blue background for my current tumblr theme so here's the Bay City Rollers!

[bcrdedication]

[baycitystygian]

on the subject of things I wanted to GIF I don’t even care that this is like a millisecond long look at HIM

[scotianostra]

Bay City Roller Alan Longmuir was born at Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion Hospital Edinburgh on June 20th 1948.

Alan Longmuir was born in Edinburgh, one of four children of Duncan and Georgina Longmuir, who encouraged their interest in music. His father was an undertaker who allowed Alan to wear his top hat and long frock coat when performing for guests at the family home.

Alan and his younger brother, Derek – the Rollers’ future drummer – went to Tynecastle high school, which Alan left at 15. After a year of office work he was apprenticed as a plumber, but the job was secondary to his yearning to be a musician, he eventuallyt hit the big time as the bassist and founding member of the Bay City Rollers, the band that hit the heights of pop fame in the 1970s, of his fame he said he was “Just a plumber from Edinburgh who got lucky” .

The group he started in 1964 dominated mid-70s pop both in Britain and internationally, selling around 100m records – the precise total, and royalties owed the band, have never been established, spawning a long-running dispute with their former record label and their late manager Tam Paton.

In their peak year, 1975, they had two UK No 1 singles, including the signature hit Bye Bye Baby; the end of that year saw them top the American chart with the stomping Saturday Night – a foundational influence on the Ramones. When they played live, fans showed their appreciation by breaking seats; consequently, many venues refused to book them. They were the biggest pop sensation since the Beatles, and of the pop idols who have followed, only One Direction have inspired quite the same frenzy.

Like the rest of the Rollers, Longmuir, the band’s bassist, felt trapped by fame and the concomitant erosion of their privacy. Unlike the others, he refused to observe their manager’s edict against drinking alcohol and having girlfriends. In 1976, he was sacked because he was “too old and too hard to control”, according to Simon Spence’s 2016 biography The Dark History of the Bay City Rollers. Longmuir himself said: “I had a fallout with [manager Tam Paton] because I wanted to get a life.”

The public were told that he had chosen to go; in his first photo session as an ex-Roller, he wore a three-piece business suit – tantamount to sticking two fingers up at the band, who were forced to wear matching tartan outfits during all public sightings.

After his departure from the group in 1976, he released a solo single, I’m Confessing, but spent much of his time fishing and looking after his horses on his farm in Dollar, Clackmannanshire.

He viewed the 70s with wry humour, saying in 2008: “I remember sitting at the bar of the Beverly Hills hotel – there was Patrick Magee, Barbra Streisand, David Soul – and Alan Longmuir, the plumber from Edinburgh.”

In 1978, Paton asked him to rejoin, thinking that Longmuir, then nearly 30, would exert a stabilising influence. He left again in 1983, and repeated the process several times, he returned to working as a plumber and from 2000 until retirement was a bylaws inspector. His fringe show debuted in 2014 and came back to the festival every year since .

The band again reunited for a successful 2016 reunion tour.

Alan Longmuir passed away two years later on July 2nd 2018, in Mexico where he was on holiday with his wife Eileen.

At the time of his death, the band were again inactive, and he was working on the latest version of his successful Edinburgh fringe show, a music-and-memories production called I Ran With the Gang. He was also preparing an autobiography for release later that year.

[les-mckeowns-simp]

Fun fact, I am friends with Duncan Faure on Facebook and he liked my profile picture. Sometimes I love my life.

[lifeonaledge]

Early Bay City Rollers line up with Billy Lyall in front, Derek and Alan Longmuir, David Paton and lead singer Nobby Clarke left to right.

The Longmuir brothers stayed with the band. Original singer Nobby Clark was replaced by Les McKeown in 1974, Billy Lyall and David Paton formed the musically respected chart hit band Pilot.

[knucklesandwichnancy]

R.I.P. Leslie.

[u-friend-or-ufo]

They've never seen an Asexual person before. It can be quite daunting.

[winenwind]

So can you guys really handle my drink order?

[icantbelieveitsnotrock]

Bay City Rollers // Lovely to See You

[scarlettapril]

The one time in Roller history where Derek and Alan actually look related. They are almost like twins in this photo.

[bcrdedication]