HISTORY OF BILBO BAGGINS

Bilbo Baggins was first formed in November, 1972.

When Dev, Colin and Brian who all had been in rival groups in Edinburgh, decided to get together.

In each of the groups the boys had previously played, there was a difference of aims. Members of the other bands were content to play at weekends while keeping their jobs, but that wasn't what each future Bilbo Boy had in mind. This time it had to be all or nothing, and as the boys mutually respected each other as musicians, their coming together was inevitable.

They set about auditioning several drummers without much success, so they decided to ask Tam if he knew of any and as it happened Fid had just phoned Tam that day looking for a group, so after a brief meeting there were four members of Bilbo Baggins.

Tosh, who had lived around the corner from Brian most of his life, was the final addition to the group. The others had had him in mind for some time, but he was committed to another band which he eventually left, and in fact the first time he played with the lads was also the bands first recording session, at Craighall studio, in Edinburgh.

That was in January 1973. The band recorded two tracks at that session, and these Tam took round the record companies in London. The demo's created so much interest that they had offers from almost all the major companies. In October the boys finally decided to sign with Polydor records, and later that year got down to the business of recording a single.

By this time Bilbo had a large following in Scotland, and were experiencing some very hairy scenes in places like Aberdeen, Glasgow and of course their home town Edinburgh. They also had some favourable reaction in England, by the time their first single, "Saturday Night" was released in May 1974.

The boys appeared on the Lift Off T.V. programme with Saturday Night, and the disc made the breakers in the national charts, establishing the name of Bilbo Baggins in a lot of minds. They also flew out to Amsterdam to appear on Holland's TV programme Top Pops, but despite being given the power play on Luxembourg, and having other national radio coverage, Saturday Night was not the great success the boys had hoped for and eventually faded out. After overcoming the initial disappointment of their first record not being a hit, Colin, Dev, Tosh, Brian and Fid, soon realised that although the record hadn't made the big time for them, it really had done quite well for a first single. With a bit of encouragement from Tam, the boys went into the studio to record single number two.

Unfortunately this record, called "THE SHA NA NA SONG" never really took off the ground, Undaunted Bilbo Baggins went back into the studio to record single number three. "HOLD ME", as the single was called, helped the boys to gain even more support nationwide, as well as to firmly establish them in the minds of TV pop programme producers. With it they were on London Weekend's Saturday Scene, as well as 45, not forgetting the Bay City Rollers series Shang a Lang.

The record was played a great deal on almost all the local radio stations all over the country, and in east of Scotland, it climbed to number nineteen in the Radio Forth charts. Altogether it was in the Forth charts for eleven weeks. Bilbo also made personal appearances at many of the radio stations, chatting and answering questions put by the D.J.'s. Once again Luxembourg took a liking to a Bilbo Baggins record and Peter Powell made the disc his hit pick.

Despite this the record was not included on the Radio One playlist, and the result was that although it was a regional hit in some places, Radio One listeners were not even aware of its existence.

Page Last Updated: 4 March, 2010

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