In a Big Country
Big Country, 1983, from The Crossing. Solo by Stuart Adamson, Bruce Watson.
The twin guitars imitate bagpipes with processed tones, creating one of the most distinctive guitar sounds of the decade.
Stuart Adamson and Bruce Watson built one of the most recognisable guitar sounds of the 1980s by making two electric guitars behave like pipes. The lines are bright, sustained and heavily treated, moving in skirling, ornamented melodies that owe more to Scottish folk than to blues rock. The two players interlock and harmonise rather than trade flashy solos, so the lead part is really a shared, marching tune that carries the whole song. It showed that a guitar band could find a national, folk-rooted identity without dropping the power of rock. Listen for the way the twin lines swell and bend at the ends of phrases, imitating the drone-and-grace-note feel of a pipe band.
In a Big Country by Big Country is featured in our New Wave (#18) list. The solo is played by Stuart Adamson, Bruce Watson and the song was released in 1983.
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Who played the guitar solo on In a Big Country?
Stuart Adamson, Bruce Watson played the solo on Big Country's In a Big Country (1983).