by Jack Lovejoy

Created on: January 20, 2007

The demise of the Bay City Rollers came about in late 1978, after differences (or should that be conflicts?) between singer Leslie McKeown and the rest of the band came to a head during the recording of The Bay City Rollers show, a venture which, for many, brought the band's already flagging career to an abrupt end. After McKeown's departure, the remaining Rollers wasted no time in recruiting South African Duncan Faure as a replacement. Not only did this sever ties with McKeown, albeit temporarily, but a situation in Germany also resulted in their infamous manager Tam Paton also disassociating himself from the band. As alarming as these events may have seemed, the Bay City Rollers now had the creative freedom they so wanted and deserved. But was it too late?

It may be suggested that dropping the 'Bay City' from their moniker may have been a step too far, especially bearing in mind the dramatic shift in direction the music took. However, this was, in many ways, a new band. The music was stronger than before, and although they had lost a great showman in McKeown, Faure brought to the table a formidable and versatile talent, much better suited to the ideas Eric Faulkner had been harbouring, as he had for a long time been the creative nucleus of the Bay City Rollers. As much as they had been abandoned, the Rollers still had more to give.

The Rollers began their new catalogue with Elevator in 1979. After the failure of the Strangers In The Wind album in 1978, the Rollers found themselves way down the pecking order at Arista. The album, however eclectic, was the most cohesive album the band had ever released in any of their incarnations, and spawned three singles in its title track, Turn On The Radio and Hello And Welcome Home which had, incidentally, been previously recorded by Rabbitt. This meant that it was the natural choice for single release in South Africa, where Duncan had had enormous success with Rabbitt and on his own. Hello And Welcome Home was a respectable hit in Duncan's homeland but due to poor promotion, the other singles failed to perform. Indeed, the LP only got widespread release in Germany and Japan, and therefore failed to chart anywhere else.

The Rollers only had one more chance with Arista, and Voxx did not rise to the occasion. More in keeping with the very first couple of Rollers albums, Voxx was somewhat haphazard, consisting mainly of leftovers from the prolific Elevator sessions. It did however, contain some real gems in The Hero and Soho,

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