Julia's Club Eighties
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
In a big country dreams stay with you...
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.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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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." It sold poorly.
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.
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?.
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.
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.
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.
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. (info taken from wikipedia.org)
DOWNLOAD LINK: bc12inchers
.
2 Comments:
I never saw you look like this without a reason
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you
I never took the smile away from anybody's face
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child
CHORUS:
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime
CHORUS
So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered
TAILSPIN
hi good post this but problem with fields of fire. it cuts off suddenly at about 3.20 which is even shorter than the usual lp version. would appreciate if you could re-upload
Post a Comment
<< Home