“I was in Norman’s Rare Guitars in LA when I spotted the Les Paul. I played it for hours in the shop”: The unlikely fate of Big Country frontman Stuart Adamson’s ‘Peace in Our Time’ Les Paul

In 1988, Big Country decamped to Los Angeles to record their fourth album, Peace In Our Time, an attempt to capture the American rock market.

“I was in Norman’s Rare Guitars in LA,” says Big Country guitarist Bruce Watson, “when I spotted the Les Paul. I played it for hours in the shop and nearly bought it, but I also loved this ’61 Strat that was for sale. I had a couple of Les Pauls already, so I went for the Strat. I told Stuart about the Les Paul and he snapped it up.”

Stuart used the Les Paul for the recording of fourth album Peace In Our Time and for their gigs later that year in Moscow. The guitar fell into the hands of local man Niall Fairlie in 2004, quite by accident.

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“A friend of a friend had it and I was looking for a good Les Paul at the time. When he opened the case, I was like [no hesitation], ‘How much do you want for it?’

The guy told him it had previously belonged to Stuart Adamson, but he took it with a pinch of salt. “And then I did a bit of research. Mup [Bruce’s guitar tech] said, ‘Is that the one from the Moscow show?’ and there was a Big Country roadie that worked for GuitarGuitar – he could describe the dink on the top before I even showed him it.”

Niall uses it in his cover band (“I bought it to play – it wasn’t going to sit on a wall or something”) and it’s also appeared on stage with Big Country: he loaned it to Big Country Redux singer Tommie Paxton for a concert in Dunfermline a couple of years ago.

• Stay Alive: The Life and Death of Stuart Adamson is out now via New Modern.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.