Pilot

In 1973 the Scottish soft rock group Pilot came together when bassist and vocalist David Paton joined forces with Billy Lyall on synthesizer, flute, and vocals plus drummer Stuart Tosh. Additional players were brought in over time, among them two ex-members of the teeny boppers the Bay City Rollers and session guitarist Ian Bairnson, leading to the release of the band’s self-titled debut album in 1974. That record yielded the Top 20 hit “Magic,” though the outfit’s greatest commercial triumph came with the 1975 single “January” from the follow-up Second Flight, which climbed all the way to number one. More albums arrived in the form of 1976’s Morin Heights and 1977’s Two’s a Crowd, along with additional singles that achieved moderate success such as “Call Me Round” and “Just a Smile,” before Pilot disbanded. Tosh soon joined 10cc, while Paton and Bairnson turned to studio work that included performances on Kate Bush’s 1978 debut The Kick Inside and on various recordings by Alan Parsons, who had produced the band’s first, second, and fourth albums. Lyall issued the solo album Solo Casting, which featured his former Pilot bandmates, then became a member of Dollar until his death from an AIDS-related illness in December 1989. Paton and Bairnson resurfaced in 2002 with Blue Yonder, and twelve years later they brought Tosh back into the lineup to record A Pilot Project: A Return to the Alan Parsons Project, a collection of covers paying tribute to Parsons’ longtime creative partner Eric Woolfson.