BIG COUNTRY
This month Martin Cooper nips over the border as he remembers Scottish rockers Big Country and the talented but troubled Stuart Adamson.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Big Country founding member and frontman Stuart Adamson. Along with the likes of Simple Minds and Del Amitri, Big Country were one of the greatest Scottish bands of the 1980s. Blending melodies and rhythms from bagpipe music and military bands, with rock guitar and catchy pop tunes, they were one of the most recognisable bands of the decade, if one of the most unsung.
Founders Adamson and fellow guitarist Bruce Watson were joined by Tony Butler on bass and Mark Brzezicki on drums, and by the time of their second single, Fields Of Fire in 1983, the group had broken the UK top 10. Their debut album sold over a million units in the UK and half a million in the US, driven by the sound of Adamson and Watson’s deliberately non-blues guitar tones and playing styles.
More success followed in the UK, including sold-out tours as headline act and also supporting bands such as Queen, but the band was not to repeat its initial success in the US, even after later trying to deliver a sound that might appeal to that market.
Although continuing to release albums and tour into the 1990s, Stuart Adamson had battled with depression and alcohol addiction for a number of years. He was sadly found dead in a hotel room in America in December 2001.
Big Country have continued to tour with various line-ups over the years, including Mike Peters of The Alarm on lead vocals and Simple Minds bass player Derek Forbes joining the band for a season.
It’s the early 1980s sound that we focus on this month, and the track makes use of the military rhythms and bagpipe-type melodies that Big Country incorporated so well. We’re in E Major (E-F#-G#-A-BC#-D#) and all the notes in the rhythm and lead parts belong to that key. The way the chords are played borrows some of the punk and new wave attitude of Adamson’s previous band Skids, and the chord progression is a typical Major I-IV-V (E-A-B). The lead lines aren’t difficult, with the possible exception of the 16th-note phrase that ends the solo; it’s all about the melodies in the type of parts that Adamson and Watson played together so well.
“The lead lines aren’t difficult. It’s all about the melodies in the type of parts that Adamson and Watson played together so well”