Bilbo Baggins Home Page

This website is a tribute to Bilbo Baggins, latterly known just as Bilbo, a Scottish pop band with a loyal fan base. Formed in Edinburgh in 1972 and comprising of band members Dev, Colin, Brian, Fid and Tosh they played 100s of gigs throughout the UK during the seventies. Known by many through their connection to the Bay City Rollers (Tam Paton was manager for both bands) but actually being a completely different style of band. Their pop music leant a lot more towards rock with a more funky and fuller sound.

Bilbo's great strength was their live performance. They would always deliver a solid set and their great sense of humour would often shine through as they joked with the audience. Colin's unique vocal style was also key to their sound - his amazing vocal range could send shivers down your spine and vibrations through your feet. One of their greatest challenges must have been as support band on the Roller's tour in 1976 but even this very biased audience warmed to them.

Bilbo were a dedicated, determined and hard-working band and they must also rate as one of the most unlucky. The Roller connection did initially give them some good openings but it really was a double-edged sword. The serious music press did not warm to them and they were often not included on radio playlists, although local radio stations and Radio Luxembourg were a lot more supportive. Their first few singles stayed frustratingly outside of the Top 50 (probably due to lack of national radio play) which meant they did not get to appear on Top of the Pops and gain the exposure of the then most important music TV show. After their final split from Tam Paton management they were left with contractual disputes and 1977 became a very difficult year for them as they tried to get back on track. By 1978 when they were signed to Lightning records the tide of musical taste had turned away from pop and was embracing punk and New Wave. Despite a change of image (some rather dodgy perms and Lycra), it was now too late for the band to achieve the commercial success they really deserved.

On this site we hope to tell the story of the band and give some insight into the band members and what they have gone on to do after the band finally split up in 1979.

Recent Updates

By the very nature of Bilbo's current status updates will be irregular. If there is important news we will send out a newsletter, so be sure to subscribe to the mailing list (see the navigation bar to the left).

7th March 2008

Fan Gallery: We have introduced a new section called "The Fan's Gallery". The idea is for you to send us your photographs of you with any of the band members. First up is Graeme W of Edinburgh who sent us some great pictures of him with Fid, Colin and Brian. If you can better his pictures then let us know. In the meantime, have a look at what Graeme sent us at Fan's Gallery.

21st January 2008

Chisholm Goes On The Web: Thanks to an email from Heather it can now be revealed that Colin now has his own website promoting him as a singer. The website colinchisholm.com is still under development but, according to Bill Smith (Colin's manager), will list future events Colin will be appearing at. There are no dates at present as dates have still to be confirmed.

The fact there is a website at all is a promising start. However, most, if not all, are likely to be in Colin's native Scotland, which leaves fans from south of the border looking to travel north. It is likely that Colin will perform music from musicals rather than songs from the days of Bilbo Baggins, but Colin has a superb voice and is well worth going to see, whatever he is performing, be it musicals, Bilbo or entries from the telephone directory.

8th January 2007

Message from Bilbo Music: Happy New Year to everyone. We hope you survived the festive season with all your brain cells intact.

Pictures from Brian: Like Dev before him, Brian has sent Bilbo Music some very rare pictures of the band during their early days. These can be viewed on Bilbo's Own Pics page.

5th October 2007

Pictures from Dev: Since we created the website Dev has got in contact to tell us that he thinks the site is great and has also sent us some addition pictures to use. These can be seen on page 3 of the pin-ups or by clicking on the following link. Go to Dev's Pictures.

26May 2007

Colin Performs: On Saturday 26th May 2007 Colin returned to the live stage for the first time in 6 years.  He sang in Edinburgh for a private party and apparently received a fantastic reception.  We hope that this will be the start of regular live performance for Colin.  Maybe a possible Bilbo reunion could be one step nearer!

Page Last Updated: 6 March, 2008

© Morley Enterprises 2005. This site, BilboMusic, is a personal site and is not affiliate with Bilbo Baggins, Bilbo, Brian Spence, Colin Chisholm, Jimmy Devlin, Gordon Liddle, Gordon McIntosh, Tam Paton, Chisholm & Spence or anyone else for that matter. Any copyright infringement is accidental. The pictures and music on this site are there for information only. They are not there for any commercial purpose. Therefore, if anyone representing the artist(s) or record company(ies) want me to remove these items please mail me and I will remove them immediately! This site, BilboMusic, and Morley Enterprises are not responsible for the content of any other websites that are linked from here. So there.