BIG COUNTRY STAR’S DEATH RIDDLE

Stuart Adamson's manager Ian Grant is left stunned by the star's death in a Hawaii hotel room...

Further details have been emerging about events leading the death of BIG COUNTRY’s STUART ADAMSON, though the cause remains unknown.

As previously reported, family and friends of the late troubled star had hired a private detective to track him down following his disappearance. He had left a note for his 19-year-old son Calum on November 7 reading “back by noon Sunday” – four days later. He was not seen again.

However, by tracing his credit card transactions, his family and manager Ian Grant discovered that he had been staying in a hotel in Nashville, which he checked out of on December 3. Police, who had placed Adamson on the Missing Persons Register, said that according to a travel ticket they found with him, he arrived in Hawaii the following day. He was found dead in a Honolulu hotel room yesterday (December 16). Grant told NME.COM that it was not yet clear how the singer died, and he was awaiting further information from the Australian consulate, who deal with matters relating to UK citizens in Hawaii. No details have as yet been announced of when or where his funeral will be held.

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Stuart had been battling alcoholism since the mid-80s when Big Country were at the height of their fame, and was teetotal for 12 years. However he started drinking again around four years ago, Grant said.

“He had seemed to be a recovered alcoholic, as opposed to recovering, but I guess there’s no such thing. He started dabbling with booze again four years or so ago. In May this year he was clearly having problems, unable to finish gigs when he was on tour. I thought he’d cured it, he’d gone into rehab and the last time I spoke to him, he sounded great. He wanted to do a solo album for the first time in his career, he wanted a punk edge to it, and he was telling me he’d got a part-time gig coaching soccer in Atlanta – his equal

love in life to music was football.”

Stuart first came to prominence in the late 70s with Dunfermline punk band The Skids, whose hits include ‘Working For The Yankee Dollar’ and ‘Into The

Valley’. But it was with Big Country, formed in 1982, that he found most success, releasing eight studio albums – the biggest selling being their second album, chart-topper ‘Steeltown’ – and 28 singles, four reaching the Top Ten.

In recent years he had embarked in a more country-influenced direction,

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after moving to Nashville with his second wife, Melanie Shelley, from whom he was estranged. He leaves two children from his first marriage.

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