Alan Longmuir

Alan Longmuir (20 June 19482 July 2018) was a Scottish musician and a founding member of the pop group the Bay City Rollers. He played the bass guitar, whilst his younger brother Derek Longmuir was drummer. His father, Duncan was an undertaker.

Career

A member of a musical family, he formed his first band at the age of 17, with his brother Derek and two others. They changed their name and line-up to become the Bay City Rollers.

In 1976, at the height of the band's popularity, Alan Longmuir was growing tired and stressed, and was subsequently kicked out of the group by their manager for being "too old and too hard to control". Longmuir was replaced by rhythm guitarist Ian Mitchell, who was ten years his junior. Tam Paton, then the group's manager, alleged that Longmuir had tried to commit suicide. Paton's own conduct was later revealed as a contributory factor in the unhappiness of some band members. Mitchell himself made way for Pat McGlynn in December 1976.

Longmuir returned to the group in 1978 following McGlynn's departure, and thereafter switched between bass guitar, rhythm guitar and keyboards. He also played piano accordion.

In 1977, Longmuir released "I'm Confessing", which peaked at number 44 in Australia.The B Side "I've Got Songs" which was written by Nobby Clark his friend who was the former lead singer of the Bay City Rollers. As Longmuir required a B side and did not have a song Nobby Clark gave the song to Longmuir to use, however Longmuir took the writing credit, which was not the agreement they had shook hands on. Nobby Clark had recorded a demo of the song as it was going to be his next single before giving it to Longmuir, so there is evidence to prove this fact.< ref name="aus"> He played a mechanic in the 1980 film, Burning Rubber.

Personal life After leaving the Bay City Rollers in the 1970s, Longmuir spent much of his time fishing and looking after his horses on his farm in Dollar, Clackmannanshire. His second, lasting marriage was to Eileen Rankin Longmuir, whom he met in 1994, from 1998 until his death; Eileen had two sons of her own, to whom Alan was step-father.

Health While owner of the Castle Campbell Hotel in Dollar, Clackmannanshire, he suffered two heart attacks (one happened in 1995) and a stroke in 1997, and in 2000 he decided to retrain as a building inspector. When Alan suffered the heart attack in 1995, Derek was one of the nurses who helped him recover. As a result of the stroke, the muscles in his left eye were damaged and he was paralysed down most of his left side. He was flown by air ambulance from Mexico back to Scotland.

By his side at the time of his death were his wife, children and friends, including Les McKeown. Alan was told by medics in Mexico that a liver transplant could help him, but due to his age and medical history, there was "no hope" in the procedure. Longmuir was remembered at New York's "tartan day" in 2022, to which Eileen was invited.