Bay City Rollers
Bay City Rollers in the Netherlands in 1976
Background information
Also known as	The Ambassadors, The Saxons, The Rollers, The New Rollers
Origin	Edinburgh, Scotland
Genres	Pop[1] glam rock[2] pop rock[3]
Years active	1964–1987, 1990, 1996, 1999–2000, 2015–2016, 2018–present
Labels	Bell Arista Epic
Members	Stuart "Woody" Wood Ian Thomson Mikey Smith Jamie McGrory John McLaughlin
Past members	See Former members
Website	Bay City Rollers

The Bay City Rollers are a Scottish pop rock band known for their worldwide teen idol popularity in the 1970s. One of many 1970s acts heralded as the "biggest group since the Beatles",^[4] they were called the "tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh", and sold between an estimated 120–300 million records worldwide, making them one of the best selling musical acts of all time globally.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} Their classic line-up during their peak popularity included guitarists Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood, singer Les McKeown, bassist Alan Longmuir and his younger brother Derek Longmuir on drums.

Their debut album, Rollin' (1974), debuted atop the UK Albums Chart and spent a combined total of fifty-eight weeks on the chart.^[10] Their follow-up studio album Once Upon a Star (1975) continued this success, again debuting atop the UK Albums Chart.^[11] The album yielded the successful singles "Bye, Bye, Baby", which topped the charts in the UK, Ireland and Australia,^[12][13][14] and "Keep On Dancing". "Bye, Bye, Baby" was the best selling single in the UK in 1975.^[15] Their first album to be released in the United States and Canada, Bay City Rollers (1975) peaked at number twenty on the US Billboard 200 and number one in Canada.^[16][17]

Commercial success continued internationally with the release of Wouldn't You Like It? (1975), Rock n' Roll Love Letter (1976), Dedication (1976) and It's a Game (1977). Their significance in international charts began to decline in 1978 upon the release of Strangers in the Wind, which failed to chart in the United Kingdom, but reached the top five in Japan. Further releases Elevator (1979) and Voxx (1980) made little impact on international charts. They returned to chart prominence in the 2000s and 2010s with the release of a series of compilation albums – The Very Best of (2004), The Greatest Hits (2010) and Gold (2019), all of which reached the top twenty in the United Kingdom,^[10] and the top ten on the national albums chart in their native Scotland.^[18][19]

Despite their international prominence during the 1970s and early 1980s, the Bay City Rollers never made the transition from boy band, as their members aged, and their career was marked by financial difficulties and mismanagement. Several members accused manager Tam Paton of sexual assault, but no charges were laid. The current line-up (since 2018) includes rhythm guitarist Stuart "Woody" Wood, the only member to appear on all of the band's studio albums, vocalist and lead guitarist Ian Thomson, bassist Mikey Smith, keyboardist John McLaughlin and drummer Jamie McGrory.^[20]