(CelebrityAccess) — Leslie Richard McKeown, former lead singer for the Bay City Rollers during the band’s heyday, has died. He was 65.
McKeown’s family announced ion social media that he died suddenly at his home on Tuesday but did not share a cause of death.
McKeown joined the Bay City Rollers in 1973 at the start of the band’s most successful commercial run and recorded a series of smash hits such as “I Only Wanna Be With You,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “Shang-a-Lang,” and “Give a Little Love.”
However, by the late 1970s, the group was riven by creative differences amid waning commercial success and McKeown exited the Bay City Rollers in 1978 by mutual agreement as the band re-oriented towards a New Wave sound.
After his departure from the band, he launched a career as a solo artist and went on to record nine albums of his own, the most recent being 2016’s The Lost Songs.
He also reformed the group as Les McKeown’s Bay City Rollers and continued to tour. The group was forced to cut their most recent tour short last year as the coronavirus shut the touring industry down but was lined up to resume the run in November.
