Scottish acts who conquered the US

Other Scots who made it to the top of the charts in America...

Braemar-born GORDON WALLER and his singing partner Peter Asher topped the Billboard Hot 100 as Peter and Gordon with their debut single A World Without Love in June 1964. The song was written by Paul McCartney, who was dating Asher’s sister Jane at the time.

Maryhill minstrel DONOVAN left the grey streets of Glasgow far behind when he became the first solo Scot to top the US single charts with Sunshine Superman in 1966. The denim-clad beatnik later admitted “sunshine” was slang for LSD.

LULU, from Dennistoun, had an American number one with the title track to the Sidney Poitier film To Sir with Love, in which she also starred. The song was only a B-side in the UK but it rocketed to the top in America and stayed there for five weeks in the autumn of 1967, becoming the top-selling single there that year.

In February 1975, the Tayside sextet the AVERAGE WHITE BAND pulled off an impressive double – topping the US album and singles charts in the same week. The first single from the AWB album had flopped but once Atlantic Records heard that Pick up the Pieces was popular in discos, the track was released as a single and the irresistible groove pushed it all the way to the top.

Saturday Night by the BAY CITY ROLLERS became the first US number one of 1976 – America’s bicentennial year. It was the first single released in the

US by the Rollers and its slow-burn success sparked a brief spell of Rollermania there. Bizarrely, the song’s chanted chorus was later cited by The Ramones as an influence for their punk classic Blitzkrieg Bop.

In February 1981, Bellshill council estate girl SHEENA EASTON scored a number one on the Billboard chart with Morning Train (9 to 5). Sheena came to prominence on the BBC reality show The Big Time: Pop Singer but reinvented herself in the mid-1980s with the help of Prince.

Aberdeen-born ANNIE LENNOX, below, and her Eurythmics partner Dave Stewart went to the top of the American charts for one week in September 1983 with the synth-classic Sweet Dreams (are Made of This). The iconic video for the song featured Dave and Annie, with her cropped bright orange hair, and a herd of cows in a field in the Kent countryside.

Glasgow’s SIMPLE MINDS got to number one in May 1985 with Don’t You (Forget about Me) which featured on the soundtrack of The Breakfast Club movie. Singer Jim Kerr’s then wife Chrissie Hynde helped persuade the band to record it.

Former fish factory worker CALVIN HARRIS, from Dumfries, below, spent ten weeks at number one over the winter of 2011-12 with the song We Found Love featuring Rihanna on vocals.

● Honorary Scot ROD STEWART has had four Billboard number one singles. Maggie May in 1971, Tonight’s the Night (1976-77), Da ya Think I’m Sexy? (1979) and All for Love (1999), where he shared vocal duties with Sting and Bryan Adams.

● Glasgowborn MARK KNOPFLER and his band Dire Straits spent three weeks at number one in 1985 with Money for Nothing.