| Big Country |
| Background information |
| Origin |
Scotland |
| Genre(s) |
Rock, New
Wave, Heavy
metal |
| Years active |
1981–2000 |
| Label(s) |
Phonogram
Records
Track-BCR Records |
| Members |
Bruce Watson
Tony Butler
Mark Brzezicki |
| Former members |
| Stuart
Adamson (deceased) |
For other uses, see Big Country
(disambiguation).
Big Country was a rock band
from Dunfermline,
Scotland,
popular in the early to mid 1980s but still are releasing material for
a cult
following since 2004. The band was notable for music heavily
accented with traditional Scottish folk and martial music styles, as
well as for playing and engineering their guitar sound to resemble the bagpipes, fiddles and other
traditional folk
instruments.
|
Contents
- 1 Career
- 2 Albums
- 2.1 The
Crossing
- 2.2 Wonderland
- 2.3 Steeltown
- 2.4 The
Seer
- 2.5 Peace
in Our Time
- 2.6 The
Buffalo Skinners
- 2.7 Why
the Long Face?
- 2.8 Driving
to Damascus
- 3 The
final days
- 4 A
new beginning
- 5 Discography
- 6 External
links
|
Career
Composed of Stuart Adamson (formerly of
The
Skids, vocals,
guitar, keyboards), Bruce Watson (guitar, vocals),
Tony Butler (bass
guitar, vocals) and Mark
Brzezicki (drums, percussion, vocals)
though a variety of other drummers have been in the band their long
career, including Simon Phillips. Pete Wishart who joined Runrig
and became prominent in the SNP, was in an early version
of the band -- the same incarnation that supported Alice
Cooper and got thrown off the tour for being "too weird". Although the
band's music drew from Scottish traditional music, none of its members
were born in Scotland. Adamson grew up in Dunfermline,
and as such, his trademark Scottish accent was genuine.
Albums
The Crossing
Formed initially as a five piece band in 1981, their first single
was "Harvest
Home", recorded and
released in 1982. It was a modest success, reaching #91 on the UK
Singles Chart. Their next single was 1983's "Fields of Fire", which
reached the UK's Top Ten
and was rapidly followed by the album The
Crossing. The album was a hit in the United
States, powered by "In a Big Country", their only U.S.
Top 40 hit
single. The song
featured heavily engineered guitar playing, strongly reminiscent of bagpipes;
Adamson and fellow guitarist, Watson, achieved this through the use of
the MXR Pitch Transposer 129 Guitar Effect. Also contributing to the
band's unique sound was their early virtuoso use of the e-bow, a device
which allows a guitar to sound more like strings or synthesizer. The
Crossing sold over a million copies in the UK
and obtained gold record
status (sales of over 500,000) in the U.S.
Wonderland
The band released the non-LP extended
play single Wonderland in 1984 while undergoing a
lengthy worldwide tour. The song, considered by some critics to be one
of their finest, [1][2] was a Top Ten
hit (#8) in the UK singles chart but despite heavy airplay
and a positive critical response, was a comparative flop in the U.S.,
only reaching #86 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the last
single by the band to make a U.S. chart appearance.
Steeltown
Their second album Steeltown (1984)
was a hit as soon as it was released, entering the UK
Albums Chart at Number one. The
album featured three UK Top 40 hit singles, and received considerable
critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, but like Wonderland
(and, in fact, all subsequent releases) it was a commercial
disappointment in the U.S, peaking at #70 on the Billboard album charts.[3]
Throughout 1984 and 1985, the band toured the UK, Europe, and, to a
lesser extent, the U.S., both as headliners themselves and in support
of such artists as Queen and Roger
Daltrey. They also recorded prolifically, and provided the musical
score to a Scottish independent film, 'Restless
Natives' (1985), which was not released on CD
until years later on the band's Restless Natives and Rarities
(1998) collection.
The Seer
1986's The Seer,
the band's third album, was another big success in the UK, peaking at
Number 2, and producing three additional Top 40 UK singles. These
included "Look Away" which reached Number 7 (the band's highest
charting UK single). Kate Bush provided backing
vocals on the title cut, and, as was the norm for the band at the time,
the album received good reviews from the music press. In the U.S., the
album sold modestly better than Steeltown, reaching
#59 on the Billboard album charts.[4]
This album showed the band's loyalty to Scottish Nationalist
themes, with "The Seer" being about a woman who tells a traveller about
the tyranny of William of Orange upon the Jacobites
movement coming to an end soon; while "The Red Fox" was based on Kidnapped
by Robert Louis Stevenson, and
the so called Appin Murder of Colin Campbel, a Tory
who was hated by many in Scotland around 1752.
Peace in Our Time
In what some critics felt was an apparent attempt to regain
their dwindling U.S. following,[5] Big Country hooked up with
producer Peter Wolf [6] for their next album, Peace
in Our Time (1988), which was recorded in Los Angeles, California.
The result was very different from the previous singles and albums, and
it was not well received by most critics and fans.
One reviewer noted that it was the group's "least representative and
least interesting album."[7] It sold poorly.[8]
The Buffalo Skinners
In 1991, the band was dropped by Phonogram,
the label
that had released all of their material for ten years. After that, Big
Country became a minor act, popping up in the lower echelons of the
charts in the UK and Europe with the release of every subsequent album.
Only one of these, 1993's The
Buffalo Skinners, received a major
label release (via Chrysalis Records); it seemed a
return to form of sorts for the band, and obtained a surprisingly
enthusiastic critical response. But its sales were meagre and, in
retrospect, it can be seen as Big Country's last, lost chance to regain
a mass audience. Regardless, the band retained an intensely devoted
cult following, as evidenced by their deceptively large post-1990 discography,
which consists mostly of live concert recordings and
singles/rarities collections.
Why the Long Face?
Throughout the 1990s, Big Country became a popular 'opening
act', supporting such bands as Rolling Stones and The Who;
Roger
Daltrey reportedly uttered on numerous occasions that he'd
'love to steal their rhythm section!'. (In fact, Big Country had backed
Daltrey on his 1985 solo album Under The Raging Moon,
and Tony Butler played bass and backing vocals on Pete
Townshend's 1980 hit single "Let My Love Open The Door". Both
Butler and Brzezicki performed on Townshend's 1985 solo album White
City: A Novel.
Of growing concern, however, was the mental and emotional
health of lead singer Adamson, who reportedly had struggled with alcoholism
for several years. Adamson split with his first wife, who later spoke
to Scottish
and English
tabloids
about his heavy drinking. He moved to Nashville,
in the mid 1990s, where he took up residence and married a hairdresser.
While in Nashville, he met noted artist Marcus Hummon and released an
acclaimed studio album with him, under the moniker The
Raphaels.
In 1995 Big Country released another album Why
the Long Face?.
Driving to Damascus
1999 saw the release of Big Country's eighth and final studio
album, Driving to Damascus
(titled in its slightly different, augmented U.S. release John Wayne's
Dream). Adamson said publicly that he was
disappointed that the album did not fare better on the charts, which
led to depression. Later that year, he disappeared for a while before
resurfacing, stating that he had just needed some time off.
The final days
Adamson returned for the band's 'Final Fling' farewell tour,
culminating in a sold-out concert at Glasgow's Barrowland
Ballroom on 29
May 2000.
Although that marked the end of Big Country as a touring band, they
were always adamant that they would appear together again. They played
what turned out to be their last gig in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia,
in October that year.
In November 2001, Adamson disappeared again. Numerous appeals
were put on the Big Country website asking for Adamson to call home and
speak to anyone in the band, the management company, or his ex-wife.
The website also requested that any fans who might have been
'harbouring' the singer to contact the management company and alert
them to his whereabouts. Brzezicki and Butler had indicated they were
concerned but the reason Big Country had lasted so long was they stayed
out of one another's personal lives, and both later noted they were
unaware of the extent of Adamson's problems. He was found dead in a
room at the Best Western Plaza Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 16, 2001. The official autopsy revealed
that he had hanged himself.[9] [10] [11]
A memorial to Adamson was held at Dunfermline’s Carnegie Hall
in January 2002, followed by a tribute concert at the Barrowlands in
May. It brought together the remaining members of both Big Country and The
Skids; Adamson's teenage children, Callum and Kirsten; as
well as Steve
Harley, Runrig,
Simon
Townshend, Midge
Ure and Bill Nelson.
A new beginning
In 2007, to celebrate 25 years of Big
Country, founder members Bruce Watson, Tony Butler (now
lead vocalist for the first time), and Mark
Brzezicki have reunited to embark on a tour of the UK with
dates in Scotland and England.
They are also rumoured to be going into the studio and record
a new album.
Discography
For more details about the discography, see Big Country discography.
External links
| v • d • e Big
Country |
| Stuart Adamson | Mark
Brzezicki | Tony Butler | Bruce Watson |
| Discography |
| Albums: The
Crossing | Wonderland
EP | Steeltown | The
Seer | Peace
in Our Time | No Place Like Home
| The Buffalo Skinners
| Why the Long Face?
| Restless Natives
& Rarities | Bon Apetit (EP)|
In The Scud (EP)
| Driving To Damascus
| Big Country: The
Nashville Album | Undercover
| Rarities II
| One In A Million
| Greatest 12 Inch Hits
| John Waynes Dream
(US Remaster)| Rarities III | Rarities IV | Rarities V | Rarities VI | Rarities VII | The
Buffalo Skinners (The US Remaster) | Rarities VIII |
| Live and Compilations: Without the Aid of a
Safety Net | Radio
1 Sessions | BBC Live in Concert
| Eclectic | King
Biscuit Flower Hour | Brighton
Rock | Come Up Screaming
| Das Fest - Live In
Germany 95 | Live in Cologne
| Without
the Aid of a Safety Net - The Complete Concert |
| Singles: "Harvest
Home" | "Fields Of Fire" | "In
A Big Country" | "Chance" | "Wonderland" | "East Of
Eden" | "Where The Rose Is Sown" | "Just A Shadow" | "Look Away" | "The Teacher"
| "One Great Thing"
| "King of Emotion"
| "Peace In Our Time" | "The One I
Love" |
