Les McKeown

Leslie Richard McKeown was born in Broomhouse, a suburb close to the south-western city limit of Edinburgh, on 12 November 1955. His father, Francis, worked as a tailor and was deaf; his mother, Florence (née Close), was a seamstress The family communicated with his father via hand signals. attended Broomhouse Primary School, then nearby Forrester High School, and volunteered in the Boys' Brigade. and died on 24 December 2002. Florence's mother died from a miscarriage when Florence was ten years old, something that Les said she still talked about daily until she herself died. He was employed at a paper mill in between the group's gigs, which earned them £20 per show. In his autobiography, Shang-a-Lang: Life as an International Pop Idol (2003), he admits he had a happy childhood in Broomhouse, but Edinburgh, in his view, was a drab place to live, he viewed it as a place to escape from. Among the core members of the band, McKeown was the only one, after the band ran its course, who did not go back to live in Scotland. ==Career==

Bay City Rollers Departure of "Nobby Clark" in 1976, with McKeown second from the right McKeown joined the Bay City Rollers in November 1973, That said, the locally well-known band, with a recording contract with a minor label, was already established and the newly recruited singer, in his autobiography, maintains that there always was a chasm between him and the rest of the band, despite the fact they were of, more or less, the same age and shared similar backgrounds. The rest of the band members were all from Craigmillar/Liberton, suburbs of similar character to Broomhouse, but near to the southern border of the city, and as the subtitle of his autobiography suggests, McKeown had no pretension to be a rock musician/artist unlike some members of the band. His arrival also coincided with an overhaul of the group's image introducing half-mast trousers, platform shoes and tartan. They had four songs in the Top 10 in 1974 ("Remember", "Summerlove Sensation", "All of Me Loves All of You", and "Shang-a-Lang" which featured McKeown as the frontman). Manager Tam Paton "begged" Clark to appear with the band on Top of the Pops to perform the song. Whilst Clark agreed to do the performance on Top of the Pops, Paton believed this was a signal that he had changed his mind about leaving the band, and was hopeful this would be the case for an upcoming show scheduled in Perth, Scotland, however, Clark refused to perform at the concert and thereafter officially left the band. and became the 16th best selling album of the year. Additionally, it performed well in international terriorities including Australia where it reached number eight, Finland where it reached number eighteen, and Japan where it reached number thirty-seven. By early 1975, the band were one of the biggest-selling acts in the United Kingdom. Their 1975 UK tour prompted newspaper headlines about the rise of "Rollermania". With increasing popularity in the United Kingdom and in a number of international markets, a concerted effort was made by Arista Records (the record company that evolved from Bell) to launch the band in North America. The new head of Arista Records, Clive Davis, was instrumental in grooming and overseeing the project. After efforts from both the record label and Davis, the band achieved commercial breakthrough in the United States, as in late 1975 the Bay City Rollers reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 with "Saturday Night". In 1975, they released their first album in North America, Bay City Rollers which peaked at number 1 in Canada on 7 February, and number 20 on the US Billboard 200 albums charts. Departure McKeown left the group in 1978 as its popularity began to decline. In 1982, McKeown, Alan and Derek Longmuir, Stuart Wood, Ian Mitchell, and Pat McGlynn reunited for a tour of Japan that lasted until the next year. Solo career In 1979, McKeown launched a solo career with his debut album All Washed Up. Despite a lack of commercial success other than in Japan, the album became memorable for its cover art which showed McKeown "wading out of the sea and in the distance was the wreck of a plane and crash victims holding guitars", something which was believed to be his former Bay City Rollers bandmates. Heart Control (1982), followed by ''It's a Game (1989), Love Letter'' Later works Throughout the 2000s, McKeown and several other members of the band were in court trying to receive unpaid royalties. He established the pop band Egotrip and released a solo album in 1979 titled All Washed Up, which was successful in Japan. He went on to release eight more solo albums. He released his final album, The Lost Songs, in 2016. ==Artistry and legacy==

During his time with the Bay City Rollers and his subsequent solo career, McKeown continued to receive considerable commercial success in Japan, and was described as remaining a "sex symbol" up until the time of his death in the country. He was said to have "embraced the Japanese culture and lifestyle", something attributed to his marriage to a Japanese native, and "how the mutual love affair with Japan lasted four decades". ==Personal life and death==

McKeown revealed in 2009 that he was sexually assaulted when he was seventeen. McKeown accidentally killed an elderly neighbour in 1975 as a result of reckless driving, for which he was banned from driving for one year and fined £100. McKeown died on 20 April 2021, at the age of 65, after going into cardiac arrest at his home in London. ==Discography==

Solo Albums Singles ==Bibliography==