R.I.P. Stuart Adamson
11 April 1958 – 16 December 2001
A guitar player of singular beauty
The Skids Scared to Dance LP showed up in the used bins of Winnipeg a lot back in the early eighties. I laid down the $5.00 and when those opening guitar chords of "Into the Valley" flew from that diamond needle, through the coal-black amplifier and out those beating speakers into my waiting ears, I was fucking spellbound.
While I'm not sure John Peel didn't go overboard when he called The Skids' Stuart Adamson “Britain’s answer to Jimi Hendrix”, Adamson is one of those rare cases where more of my goodwill for the band is directed towards the guitarist then the lead singer. While Richard Jobson's lyrical and vocal contribution to the band were immense, it was Adamson who went on to both fame and lasting influence as the leader of Big Country. But more on that later, perhaps...
Here's a sad,sad article of Adamson's final days.
I post this video not as a fan of Green Day or U2, though I surely am, but because it's a genuine tribute to the lost genius of Stuart Adamson, to the wretched loss of New Orleans and to the massive, oft-unacknowledged, influence of The Skids as a whole on U2 and, to a lesser degree, on Green Day.
BBC Concert link is in the comments
Speaking of comments, tell us about your first encounter with Stuart Adamson's work.
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