Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the release of The Crossing, an album that didn't come to my attention until late September of that momentous year. Still and all, it came to rule my autumn of 1983, so much so that I had a little ritual where I'd give it a spin every year whenever the first chill of fall set in.
You all know I love Big Country, and I always will. Their first two albums especially were the very powerful soundtrack to a very powerful time in my life - their music was the sound of my emancipation - and seemed to manifest themselves exactly when I needed them most.
I grew up hearing jigs and reels all over the place, as my town (and my neighborhood) had a lot of first-generation Irish immigrants. So hearing all those ancient melodies and harmonies played at punk-rock intensity - and with heavy metal dexterity - was an instant "buy" for me.
The story got a bit messier after that first burst of energy from Stuart Adamson and the boys, but not many bands can boast two absolutely perfect albums and an equally perfect EP (not to mention a bunch of very good B-sides and interesting outtakes) within the space of little over a year.
Throw in 1985's soundtrack for Restless Natives and you have a run that is almost unparalleled for any band in such a short period of time.
My current theory is that the lads were surfing the strange waves of otherness that arose in the Year that Broke Reality, and were left a bit at sea when those waves died down. Mind you, they were by no means the only promising band that suffered that harsh fate.
THOSE FRIGGIN' GUYS AGAIN
Big Country got dismissed as Scottish U2 clones, but the opposite interpretation is closer to the truth. You see, The Edge cut his teeth copying Stuart Adamson's playing for The Skids, though he never came close to the skill or the fury of it.
U2 might be mediocre players - and their records largely the creations of their producers - but U2 were also definitely rock stars. They were very heavily groomed and packaged by producers, stylists and photographers, a proposition which Big Country had little interest in.
Nor were they interested in slogging back and forth through the Midwest all year as "breaking America" demanded. They were interested in making more music.
The problem was that Big Country were real musicians: Stuart Adamson had been called the "Scottish Hendrix" by John Peel and Tony Butler and Mark Brzezecki were top studio players before joining the band, playing with acts like Pete Townsend, The Pretenders, The Cult and Procul Harum.
But they were not rock stars. That mattered in the Eighties, which were often unkind to musicians who didn't (or couldn't) play the ridiculous pantomime that U2 and the rest lived and breathed for.
Since albums are a dead format and only playlists matter, I've been going through the Nineties portion of Big Country's discography, looking for top tracks for a possible BC megamix and finding there are actually quite a few. Nothing really containing the magic of the Eighties material, but some fiery and stirring numbers nonetheless.
But the real problem with Big Country in the Nineties was that losing out on the Eighties star-making sweepstakes seemed to deeply rattle Stuart Adamson. After the expensively-produced Peace in Our Time stiffed in 1988, Big Country dropped the Celtic rock vibe (meaning their entire identity) but struggled to find anything worthy to replace it.
So they lurched into American-style heartland rock (like fellow Scots Del Amitri), and then Nineties-style post-grunge meathead rock. However, they were unable to fully recover their bearings until 1999's Driving to Damascus, their last album with Adamson.
Still, it just was never the same as those iridescent days of 1983-1985. I even thought the highly-regarded Buffalo Skinners was a bit stodgy, plodding and colorless.
Sadly, lifelong struggles with alcohol and depression took their toll, and Stuart Adamson died by his own hand in an Hawaiian hotel in December 2001.
STAY ALIVE
Whether you're a fan of Big Country or just a fan of rock and roll bios, I heartily recommend my pal Scott Rowley's book on Adamson, Stay Alive. It's a fascinating and sobering look at how a man's demons eventually caught up with him, and is very much worth a read.
