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scotianostra · 4 years

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On December 16th 2001 singer/songwriter Stuart Adamson took his own life.......

Stuart's parents, expats, lived in Manchester when their boy was born and moved home to Fife when he was just four, don't anyone fuckin dare tell me he wasn't Scottish! The family settled in Crossgate on the outskirts of Dunfermline.

Adamson's father was in the fishing industry and travelled the world. He encouraged Stuart to read literature, and both parents shared an interest in folk music, Fife born author Ian Rankin attended Beath High School, two years beneath Adamson, and would later become a big fan.

Stuart founded his first band, Tattoo, in 1976 after seeing The Damned in Edinburgh, a year later he formed Skids and recruited Crosshill lad Ian Jobson, The legendary John Peel plugged them on his Radio 1 show which led them to playing support to the likes of the Clash and The Stranglers and a record deal with Virgin. Stuart walked out on the group just as they were about to make it big, for a time he rejoined the band for a tour to promote their album Scared to Dance.

Hooking up with guitarist and long-time friend Bruce Watson, Adamson formed Big Country, the line-up also featured, on keyboards, Peter Wishart, later of Gaelic rockers Runrig, and now a polititian. Originally they experimented with the synthiser sounds that were all the rage then, The Human League were riding high in the charts, but Adamson wanted something more traditional and the synth sounds made way for the guitar sound that was a unique sound for the band and that became their trademark sound. Adamson said later....“Music used to be a thing where working people got together on a Saturday night and played some songs. Someone’d play the guitar or the fiddle or an accordion. No bastard’d played the synthesiser.”

They roped in Jam drummer Rick Buckler on some demos which were hawked around a number of recording labels unsuccessfully, a support slot with Alice Cooper went disastrously too, the band’s half-baked sound grating on an audience looking for glam-metal thrills. By the second night of the tour they were sacked.

Their manager Grant Scott called in Adamson and convinced him the band needed a shake up, out went Wishart, in came in came bassist Tony Butler and drummer Mark Brzezinski, who had just finished an album with Pete Townsend of The Who. Butler, a much respected bass player had also played with Townsend, Roger Daltry and The Pretenders. The final link in the chain that brought them success was when they were signed by Phonogram records, who appointed Steve Lillywhite to produce them, Lillyywhite had just finished work on U2's breakthrough album War and had previously worked with Siouxsie And The Banshees, the Psychedelic Furs and XTC.

Initially contracted to just do a single, the sessions for Fields Of Fire produced not only that classic song, but gave birth to the Big Country sound and inspired a new bout of songwriting from Adamson, the band had it all in front of them. At the heart of it all was Adamson, the punk rocker with the virtuoso talent. He used to say, ‘Don’t call me a musician. I’m a songwriter, guitarist, singer, but muso – I don’t like that tag’,” but musician he was.

The music of their album The Crossing was epic and inspirational, as big as the glens and as loud as a cavalry charge, this was rock music yes, but not the type played by the likes of Led Zeppelin or AC/DC, this had a Scottish spin. The crowd-friendly skirling guitars, big beats and uplifting calls to arms were all great, but The Crossing also tone the sound down with the, in my own humble opinion, brilliant Chance, which Lillywhite describes as a “a beautiful, depressive song,” Released in July 1983, The Crossing went on to sell over two million copies worldwide.

Their follow up album Steeltown hit number one in the UK and hit gold status in sales, another two top ten albums followed, but all the time Stuart Adamson was fighting his demons.Although sales were good the music press started to turn on them, Steeltown was collection of songs born out of the political landscape of the 80's - the Falklands war, unemployment, tales of people trapped by circumstance and crushed by forces outside their control, it wasn’t what the press wanted to hear, the dour Scotsman. In the eyes of the music press, the band were pompous and dreary and so not cool, the dour Scotsman, in the eyes of the music press, were a pompous band and dreary and so not cool.

1985 took the pressure of Stuart a little, they were signed to score the film, The Scottish classic, Restless Natives, the instrumental score freeing him from that "dour Scotsman" tag. The bands manager Grant tells of Stuart leaving the band, but not, relentlessly on the road, doing press, radio, TV and in the studio and not at home as much as he would have liked.He was also hitting the booze big time.Unable, at the time to get a definitive answer from Stuart on the bands future they missed out on a spot at Live Aid, having previously featured on the single Do they know it's Christmas.

Come 1988 they recorded Peace In Our Time, a more mellow Middle of the Road album, which was an attempt at cracking the US market, it bombed there and the band looked east, playing Russia’s first international rock festival in August ’88 (Grant: “My pitch to him was: Bono – Amnesty International. It only added to the music press attitude that they had lost their way and were "self-important, pompous do-gooders."

After Russia, Stuart Adamson decided to split the band.They reformed in 91, recording No Place Like Home, it was the first of their albums that failed to reach the UK top 20. The music of the 90's didn't have a place for Big Country, the ensuing albums didn't dent the top 40, it felt like they were just going through the motions.

There was a small glimmer of hope when their single Fragile Thing looked like hitting the top 40, but some bizarre wrangle with the chart compilers about the CD singles cover having "too many folds in it" meant it was disqualified and languished at 69, it would have given them a springboard to punt their new album....... Stuart had by then moved to Nashville and the songs he was crafting reflected the country music scene that immerse the place. He had kicked the drink for a while but reckoned he was happy in Nashville and could start boozing again. In October 2000 Big Country played their last gig in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia. Adamson almost missed it when, drunk, he got on the wrong plane.The gig was a disaster. Butler later said “We were a karaoke version of what we were,” Butler told the band they should take a break for a couple of years, he didn't think it was helping Adamson's drink problem carrying on. Various people spoke about the next two years, phone calls from concerned friends, Adamson said in one call from Steve Lillywhite that..."I’ve worked it out, I really can’t drink, I mustn’t drink, I’m happy now not drinking…’” There was talk of a collaboration, with amongst other the subject of Saturday's post, Mike Scott and other singers a sort of British Crosby Stills and Nash. On November 15, 2001, Adamson left a bar in Atlanta, Georgia. His marriage to his second wife falling apart, he was also facing a drink-driving charge that could have led to jail time. He fell off the wagon, hard. He flew back to Nashville where, instead of going home, he stayed in various hotels. Grant hired a private detective to find him – to no avail. “He drunk solidly for eight weeks in hotels,” says the manager, “and every time we found out where he was he’d just checked out for another one.” On December 4, he flew to Hawaii and checked into a hotel near Honolulu Airport where he requested the delivery of three bottles of wine to his room each day. He never left the room. On December 16, he was found by security hanging from a clothes rail. No suicide note was ever found. He was 43. Putting this post together has been difficult for me, I fight my own demons every day, and could easily fall into a life of constant boozing, I do however manage just to hold things together. Adamson's music was a big part of my formative years and I still listen to his songs regularly, some with tears in my eyes, like this one, the aforementioned Fragile Thing, the lyric tells a story much like my own and I can empathise with him through this tune......... Thank you ma'am for asking Yes I'm on my own I guess it's kind of obvious I'm eating here aloneI'm grateful for the company Tired of talking to myself Don't you look into my eyes You might see someone else

If you decide to watch/listen to the track, you might recognise a certain Scottish female singer adding her vocals to the song......

If I have made any mistakes of mispelled anything here please don't tell me know, leave it be, like Stuart Adamson and myself, it is flawed.

#scotand #scottish #singersongwriter #tortured soul #Suicide

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