The Bay City Rollers and I Pt.II

Part one was more reflective looking at what being that Rollers fan was to me and some of those records we bought while this looks at the four core albums and their reception.

The first album had a good start with Saturday Night, the first single since September 1971 to actually go top 30 in late 1973 and Remember from early 1974 recorded with Nobby Clarke on lead vocals before Les joined the band.

The success of Shang-a-lang in the Spring made recording an album by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter easy and those first two songs were re-recorded together with Summerlove Sensation which meant by release in October it didn't just come out as the bans popularity was on the march, it had four hit singles.

The album sold extremely well.

Ain't It Strange is a favourite of mine from it.

All Of Me Loves All Of You, a non album single had done well in October and so they were the poster child of a new brand of hysteria in pop.

In March of 1975 Once Upon a Star, the second album had been released recorded with them playing most of the instruments following criticism of the use of session players which was very common place back then.

The packaging of this album was something special for it had five posters that form part of the front cover with pictures of each Roller.

This album had a high proportion of self composed songs too.

Timed for the Christmas market, Wouldn't You Like It was released December 1975 featuring Give A Little Love which had been a Number 1 single but interestingly missed out Money Honey their newest.

Again apart from being a gatefold, initial copies also had a tartan bag that contained pictures of the individuals .

As you would expect, it was highly promoted in the music press.

The following review shows just how much respect reviewers had for their maturing musical and lyrical talent, something the band has over the years been unfairly ridiculed for.

By September 1976 things were changing in the UK as North America experienced Rollermania and this lead to the fourth album being recorded in Toronto, Canada which captured their maturing sound and was the only album Ian Mitchell who had replaced Alan at the end of 1975 played on before he too left.

Interesting the UK edition did feature 1975's Money Honey but ignored both Love Me Like I Love You and the cover of I Only Wanna Be With You, the latter did make the Canadian and U.S. versions of this album.

To me this is easily their best album.

In many ways things would never be the same, the music scene was changing with popularity of funk based "disco" music and the Punk/New Wave scene as we, the fans got that bit older but we never forgot what the band and these four albums meant to us.

It is telling I still own my original vinyl editions.