The Bagpiper, by Hendrick ter Brugghen (17th Century, Netherlands).

Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes have been for centuries played throughout large parts of Europe, the Caucasus, around the Persian Gulf and in Northern Africa. The term "bagpipe" is equally correct in the singular or plural, although in the English language, pipers most commonly talk of "the pipes", "a set of pipes", or "a stand of pipes".

Bagpipe making was once a craft that produced instruments in many distinctive local traditional styles. Today, the world's biggest producer of the instrument is Pakistan, where the industry was worth $6.8 million in 2010.^[1]

Overview[link]

Skye Boat Song An adaptation of the Skye Boat Song for Great Highland bagpipes played by the Clan Stewart Pipe Band. Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The practice chanter

A detail from the Galician Cantigas de Santa Maria showing bagpipes with one chanter and a parallel drone (13th Century).

A detail from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch showing two bagpipers (15th Century).

Image of Irelande (1581)

Bagpipes are frequently used during funerals and memorials, especially among the military and police forces.

A set of bagpipes minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and, usually, at least one drone. Most bagpipes have more than one drone (and, sometimes, more than one chanter) in various combinations, held in place in stocks—connectors that fasten the various pipes to the bag.

Air supply[link]

The most common method of supplying air to the bag is by blowing into a blowpipe, or blowstick. In some pipes the player must cover the tip of the blowpipe with his tongue while inhaling, but modern blowpipes have a non-return valve that eliminates this need.

An innovation, dating from the 16th or 17th centuries, is the use of a bellows to supply air. In these pipes, sometimes called cauld wind pipes, air is not heated or moistened by the player's breathing, so bellows-driven bagpipes can use more refined and/or delicate reeds. Such pipes include the Irish uilleann pipes, the Border pipes and Northumbrian smallpipes in Britain, and the Musette de cour in France.

Bag[link]

The bag is an airtight reservoir that can hold air and can be used to regulate its flow. The player keeps the bag inflated by blowing air into it through a blowpipe or pumping air into it with a bellows, enabling the player to maintain continuous sound for some time. Materials used for bags vary widely, but the most common are the skins of local animals such as goats, dogs, sheep, and cows. More recently, bags made of synthetic materials including Gore-Tex have become much more common.

Bags cut from larger materials are usually saddle-stitched with an extra strip folded over the seam and stitched (for skin bags) or glued (for synthetic bags) to reduce leaks. Holes are then cut to accommodate the stocks. In the case of bags made from largely intact animal skins the stocks are typically tied into the points where limbs and the head joined the body of the living animal, a construction technique common in Central and Eastern Europe.

Chanter[link]

The chanter is the melody pipe, played with two hands. A chanter can be bored internally so that the inside walls are parallel for its full length, or it can be bored in the shape of a cone. Additionally, the reed which allows the creation of the melody can be a single or a double reed. Double reeds are used with both conical- and parallel-bored chanters while single reeds are generally (although not exclusively) limited to parallel-bored chanters. In general double-reed chanters are found in pipes of Western Europe with single-reed chanters found elsewhere.

The chanter is usually open-ended; thus, there is no easy way for the player to stop the pipe from sounding. This means that most bagpipes share a legato sound where there are no rests in the music. Primarily because of this inability to stop playing, grace notes (which vary between types of bagpipe) are used to break up notes and to create the illusion of articulation and accents. Because of their importance, these embellishments (or ornaments) are often highly technical systems specific to each bagpipe, and take many years and much study to master.

A few bagpipes (the musette de cour, the uilleann pipes, the Northumbrian smallpipe, and the left chanter of the surdulina, a type of Calabrian zampogna) have closed ends or stop the end on the player's leg, so that when the player covers all the holes (known as closing the chanter) it becomes silent.

Drone[link]

Most bagpipes have at least one drone: a pipe which is generally not fingered but rather produces a constant harmonizing note throughout play. A drone is most commonly a cylindrical tube with a single reed, although drones with double reeds exist. The drone is generally designed in two or more parts with a sliding joint so that the pitch of the drone can be adjusted.

Depending on the type of pipes, the drones may lie over the shoulder, across the arm opposite the bag, or may run parallel to the chanter. Some drones have a tuning screw, which effectively alters the length of the drone by opening a hole, allowing the drone to be tuned to two or more distinct pitches. The tuning screw may also shut off the drone altogether. In most types of pipes, where there is one drone it is pitched two octaves below the tonic of the chanter. Additional drones often add the octave below and then a drone consonant with the fifth of the chanter.

History[link]

Possible ancient origins[link]

The evidence for Roman and pre-Roman era bagpipes is still uncertain but several textual and visual clues have been suggested. The Oxford History of Music claims that a sculpture of bagpipes has been found on a Hittite slab at Eyuk in the Middle East, dated to 1000 BC. In the 2nd century AD, Suetonius described the Roman Emperor Nero as a player of the tibia utricularis.^[2] Dio Chrysostom, who also flourished in the 1st century, wrote about a contemporary sovereign (possibly Nero) who could play a pipe (tibia, Roman reedpipes, similar to Greek aulos) with his mouth as well as with his "armpit".^[3]

Spread and development in Europe[link]

In the early part of the second millennium, bagpipes began to appear with frequency in European art and iconography. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, compiled in Castile in the mid-13th century, depict several types of bagpipes.^[4] Though evidence of bagpipes in the British Isles prior to the 14th century is contested, bagpipes are explicitly mentioned in The Canterbury Tales (written around 1380): A baggepype wel coude he blowe and sowne, /And ther-with-al he broghte us out of towne.^[5]

Actual examples of bagpipes from before the 18th century are extremely rare; however, a substantial number of paintings, carvings, engravings, manuscript illuminations, and so on survive. They make it clear that bagpipes varied hugely throughout Europe, and even within individual regions. Many examples of early folk bagpipes in Continental Europe can be found in the paintings of Brueghel, Teniers, Jordaens and Durer.^[6]

Evidence of the bagpipe in Ireland occurs in 1581, when John Derrick's "The Image of Irelande" clearly depicts a bagpiper. Derrick's illustrations are considered to be reasonably faithful depictions of the attire and equipment of the English and Irish population of the 16th century.^[7] The Battell sequence from My Ladye Nevells Booke (1591) by William Byrd, which probably alludes to the Irish wars of 1578, contains a piece entitled The bagpipe: & the drone. In 1760, the first serious study of the Scottish Highland bagpipe and its music was attempted, in Joseph MacDonald's 'Compleat Theory'. Further south, a manuscript from the 1730s by a William Dixon from Northumberland contains music that fits the Border pipes, a nine-note bellows-blown bagpipe whose chanter is similar to that of the modern Great Highland Bagpipe. However the music in Dixon's manuscript varied greatly from modern Highland bagpipe tunes, consisting mostly of extended variation sets of common dance tunes. Some of the tunes in the Dixon manuscript correspond to tunes found in early 19th century published and manuscript sources of Northumbrian smallpipe tunes, notably the rare book of 50 tunes, many with variations, by John Peacock.

As Western classical music developed, both in terms of musical sophistication and instrumental technology, bagpipes in many regions fell out of favour due to their limited range and function. This triggered a long, slow decline that continued, in most cases, into the 20th century.

Extensive and documented collections of traditional bagpipes can be found in the Musical Instrument section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, at the International Bagpipe Museum in Gijón, Spain, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England and at the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum in Northumberland.

Recent history[link]

During the expansion of the British Empire, spearheaded by British military forces that included Highland regiments, the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe became well-known worldwide. This surge in popularity was boosted by large numbers of pipers trained for military service in World War I and World War II. The surge coincided with a decline in the popularity of many traditional forms of bagpipe throughout Europe, which began to be displaced by instruments from the classical tradition and later by gramophone and radio.

In the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Nations such as Canada and New Zealand, the Great Highland Bagpipe is commonly used in the military and is often played in formal ceremonies. Foreign militaries patterned after the British Army have also taken the Highland bagpipe into use including Uganda, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Oman. Many police and fire services in Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the United States have also adopted the tradition of fielding pipe bands.

In recent years, often driven by revivals of native folk music and dance, many types of bagpipes have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity and, in many cases, instruments that were on the brink of obscurity have become extremely popular. In Brittany, the Great Highland Bagpipe and concept of the pipe band were appropriated to create a Breton interpretation, the bagad. The pipe band idiom has also been adopted and applied to the Spanish gaita as well. Additionally, bagpipes have often been used in various films depicting moments from Scottish and Irish history; the film Braveheart and the theatrical show Riverdance have served to make the uilleann pipes more commonly known.

In the late 20th century, various models of electronic bagpipes were invented. The first custom-built MIDI bagpipes were developed by the Asturian piper known as Hevia (José Ángel Hevia Velasco).^[8]

Modern usage[link]

Types of bagpipes[link]

Dozens of types of bagpipes today are widely spread across Europe and the Middle East, as well as through much of the former British Empire. The name bagpipe has almost become synonymous with its best-known form, the Great Highland Bagpipe, overshadowing the great number and variety of traditional forms of bagpipe. Despite the decline of these other types of pipes over the last few centuries, in recent years many of these pipes have seen a resurgence or revival as musicians have sought them out; for example, the Irish piping tradition, which by the mid 20th century had declined to a handful of master players is today alive, well, and flourishing a situation similar to that of the Asturian gaita, the Galician gaita, the Aragonese gaita de boto, Northumbrian smallpipes, the Breton biniou, the Balkan gaida, the Romanian cimpoi, the Black Sea tulum, the Scottish smallpipes and pastoral pipes, as well as other varieties.

Traditionally, one of the purposes of the bagpipe was to provide music for dancing. This has declined with the growth of dance bands, recordings, and the decline of traditional dance. In turn, this has led to many types of pipes developing a performance-led tradition, and indeed much modern music based on the dance music tradition played on bagpipes is no longer suitable for use as dance music.

• 

  Bulgarian Kaba gaida Player

• 

  Royal Military College of Canada

• 

  A Turkish Laz man playing a Tulum

• 

  Irish Uilleann pipes played by Cillian Vallely

• 

  Kathryn Tickell playing the Northumbrian smallpipes

• 

  A man from Skopje playing the Gaida

• 

  A performance on the Galician gaita

• 

  A sruti upanga, a Southern Indian bagpipe

• 

  A Hungarian Duda

• 

  A Serbian bagpiper

• 

  Polish bagpipers

• 

  The Bagad of Lann Bihoué from the French Navy

• 

  Olle Gällmo playing the säckpipa Swedish bagpipes

• Pastoral pipes removable foot joint.JPG

  Pastoral pipes with removable footjoint and bellows

• 

  Street bagpiper from Sofia, Bulgaria

• 

  An Estonian bagpiper

• 

  Modern German Hümmelchen
• 

  A woman with a Asturian gaita

• 

  Galician bagpipers

• 

  Cantabrian pipe band

Usage in non-traditional music[link]

Celtic rock band Enter the Haggis featuring Highland bagpipes

Since the 1960s, bagpipes have also made appearances in other forms of music, including rock, metal, jazz, hip-hop, punk, and classical music, for example with Paul McCartney's "Mull of Kintyre", AC/DC's "It's A Long Way To The Top", Korn's "Shoots and Ladders", John Farnham's "You're The Voice" and Peter Maxwell Davies's composition Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise.

Publications about the bagpipes[link]

Periodicals[link]

Periodicals covering specific types of bagpipes are addressed in the article for that bagpipe

• Piping Today, published by The National Piping Centre, Glasgow
• Chanter, published by The Bagpipes Society
• Utriculus, published by Circolo della Zampogna, Italy

Books[link]

• The Book of the Bagpipe, Hugh Cheape
• Bagpipes, Anthony Baines, ISBN 0-902793-10-1, Pitt Rivers Museum, Univ. of Oxford, 3rd edition, 1995 147 pages with plates
• Woodwind Instruments & Their History, Anthony Baines, ISBN 0-486-26885-3, Nov. 1991, Dover Pub., with Bagpipe plates
• The Bagpipe, The History of a Musical Instrument, Francis Collinson, 1975
• The Highland Bagpipe and its Music, Roderick D. Cannon, Berlinn, 1988 & 2002

See also[link]

• List of bagpipes
• List of bagpipers
• List of pipe makers
• List of pipe bands
• List of published bagpipe music
• List of nontraditional bagpipe usage
• List of bagpipe technology books
• List of composers who employed pipe music
• Glossary of bagpipe terms
• Practice chanter
• Burden (music)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bagpipes

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bag-pipe.

• Bagpipe iconography - Paintings and images of the pipes.
• The Universe of Bagpipes - 30 different examples of bagpipes from Sean Folsom's collection
• A demonstration of rare instruments including bagpipes
• The Concise History of the Bagpipe by Frank J. Timoney
• The Bagpipe Society, dedicated to promoting the study, playing and making of English and bagpipes and pipes from round the world

Bon Scott
Bon Scott (centre) pictured with guitarist Angus Young (left), performing at the Ulster Hall: August 1979.
Background information
Birth name	Ronald Belford Scott
Also known as	Bon Scott
Born	(1946-07-09)9 July 1946 Forfar, Scotland
Died	19 February 1980(1980-02-19) (aged 33) London, England
Genres	Rock and roll, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, drums, bagpipes, recorder
Years active	1964–1980
Associated acts	AC/DC, Fraternity, The Valentines, The Spektors

Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott (9 July 1946 – 19 February 1980) was a Scottish-born Australian rock musician, best known for being the lead singer and lyricist of Australian hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death in 1980.^[1] He was born in Forfar and brought up in Kirriemuir, Scotland, before moving to Melbourne, Australia with his family in 1952 at the age of six. The family lived in the suburb of Sunshine for 4 years before moving to Fremantle, Western Australia.

Scott formed his first band, The Spektors, in 1964 and became the band's drummer and occasional lead vocalist. He performed in several other bands including The Valentines and Fraternity before replacing Dave Evans as the lead singer of AC/DC in 1974.

In the July 2004 issue of Classic Rock, Scott was rated as number one in a list of the "100 Greatest Frontmen Of All Time" ahead of Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant.^[2] Hit Parader ranked Scott as fifth on their 2006 list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of all time.^[3]

AC/DC's popularity grew throughout the 1970s, initially in Australia, and then internationally. Their 1979 album Highway to Hell reached the top twenty in the United States, and the band seemed on the verge of a commercial breakthrough. However, on 19 February 1980, Scott died after a night out in London. AC/DC briefly considered disbanding, but the group quickly recruited vocalist Brian Johnson of the British glam rock band Geordie. AC/DC's subsequent album, Back in Black, was released only five months later, and was a tribute to Scott. It went on to become the third best-selling album in history.^[1][4]

Biography[link]

Youth[link]

Ronald Belford Scott was born on 9 July 1946 at the Fyfe Jamieson Maternity Hospital, Forfar, Scotland to Charles Belford ("Chick") and Isabelle ("Isa") Scott, and grew up in Kirriemuir. A younger brother Derek was born in 1949.^[1] The Scott family emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1952 where they initially lived in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine.^[1] It was at Sunshine Primary School that he received his nickname; there was already a classmate with the name Ronald and as he had recently arrived from Bonnie Scotland he was dubbed "Bon" and the name stuck. A second brother, Graeme, was born in 1953. Bon was the oldest of Derek, Graeme, and Valerie. Bon did have an older brother born before him named Sandy Scott, but he died shortly after birth.

In 1956, the family moved to Fremantle, Western Australia and Bon joined the associated Fremantle Scots Pipe Band, learning the drums.^[1] Scott attended John Curtin College of the Arts until he dropped out at the age of 15 and spent a short time in Fremantle Prison's assessment centre and nine months at the Riverbank Juvenile Institution relating to charges of giving a false name and address to the police, having escaped legal custody, having unlawful carnal knowledge and stealing twelve gallons of petrol.^[1] He attempted to join the Australian Army but was rejected for being deemed as "socially maladjusted."^[5]

Early career[link]

Scott's vocals were inspired by his idol, Little Richard.^[6] After working as a postman, bartender and truck packer, Scott started his first band, The Spektors, in 1964 as drummer and occasional lead singer.^[7] Two years later the Spektors merged with another local band, The Winstons, and formed The Valentines, in which Scott was co-lead singer with Vince Lovegrove. The Valentines recorded several songs written by George Young of The Easybeats including "Every Day I Have to Cry" which made the local top 5.^[1] In 1970, after gaining a place on the National Top 30 with their single "Juliette", the Valentines disbanded due to artistic differences after a much-publicised drug scandal.^[8]

Scott moved to Adelaide in 1970 and joined the progressive rock band Fraternity. Fraternity released the LPs Livestock and Flaming Galah before touring the UK in 1971, where they changed their name to "Fang". During this time they played support slots for Status Quo and Geordie, whose front man, Brian Johnson, became the lead singer of AC/DC after Scott's death.^[1]

In 1973, just after returning to Australia from another tour of the UK, Fraternity went on hiatus. Scott took a day job at the Wallaroo fertiliser plant and began singing with the Mount Lofty Rangers, a loose collective of musicians helmed by Peter Head (né Beagley) from Headband, who explains "Headband and Fraternity were in the same management stable and we both split about the same time so the logical thing was to take members from both bands and create a new one ... the purpose of the band was for songwriters to relate to each other and experiment with songs, so it was a hotbed of creativity".^[9] Other ex-Fraternity members also played with the band as did Glen Shorrock pre Little River Band. During this time, Head also helped Scott with his original compositions.

Vince Lovegrove said "Bon would go to Peter's home after a day shovelling shit, and show him musical ideas he had had during his day's work. Bon's knowledge of the guitar was limited, so Peter began teaching him how to bridge chords and construct a song. One of the songs from these sessions was a beautiful ballad called "Clarissa", about a local Adelaide girl. Another was the country-tinged Bin Up in the Hills Too Long, which for me was a sign of things to come with Bon's lyrics; simple, clever, sardonic, tongue-in-cheek ..."^[10]

In return, Scott recorded vocals for Head's "Round & Round & Round" and country ballad "Carey Gully".^[11] Head released these original recordings in 1996, also teaming up with producer Ted Yanni, another old friend of Scott's, to create an entirely new backing for Round & Round & Round that more accurately reflected the original intentions Head had. Long out of print, and massively bootlegged, this EP finally got an official digital release in June 2010. Unrecorded original compositions of Scott's, "Been Up In The Hills Too Long" and "Clarissa" have been recorded by Head on his Peter Head & The Mount Lofty Rangers album, also released in digital format only in 2010.

"About 11 p.m. on 3 May 1974, at the Old Lion Hotel in North Adelaide, during a rehearsal with the Mount Lofty Rangers, a very drunk, distressed and belligerent Bon Scott had a raging argument with a member of the band. Bon stormed out of the venue, threw a bottle of Jack Daniels on to the ground, then screamed off on his Suzuki 550 motorbike."^[10] Scott suffered serious injuries from the ensuing motorcycle accident, spending three days in a coma and a further 18 days in hospital. Vince Lovegrove and his wife, by then running a booking/management agency, gave Scott odd jobs, such as putting up posters and painting the office during his recovery, and shortly after introduced him to AC/DC who were on the lookout for a new lead singer.^[8]

"There was a young, dinky little glam band from Sydney that we both loved called AC/DC ... Before another AC/DC visit, George Young phoned me and said the band was looking for a new singer. I immediately told him that the best guy for the job was Bon. George responded by saying Bon's accident would not allow him to perform, and that maybe he was too old. Nevertheless I had a meeting with Malcolm and Angus, and suggested Bon as their new singer. They asked me to bring him out to the Pooraka Hotel that night, and to come backstage after the show. When he watched the band, Bon was impressed, and he immediately wanted to join them, but thought they may be a bit too inexperienced and too young. After the show, backstage, Bon expressed his doubts about them being "able to rock". The two Young brothers told Bon he was "too old to rock". The upshot was that they had a jam session that night in the home of Bon's former mentor, Bruce Howe, and at the end of the session, at dawn, it was obvious that AC/DC had found a new singer. And Bon had found a new band."^[10]

Like Scott, Malcolm Young and his younger brother Angus Young of AC/DC were born in Scotland before emigrating to Australia in their childhood with their family.

Fraternity later reformed and replaced Scott with Jimmy Barnes.

With AC/DC[link]

Bon Scott in Grenoble, 10 December 1979.

Scott replaced Dave Evans as the lead singer of AC/DC on 24 October 1974, when it became obvious the band and Evans were heading in different directions, with Evans having personal clashes with band members and management.^[12]

With the Young brothers as lead and rhythm guitarists, session drummer Tony Currenti (see AC/DC lineups) and George Young as a temporary bassist, AC/DC released High Voltage, their first LP in Australia in 1974 according to the official Australian AC/DC website. Within a few months Currenti was replaced by Phil Rudd and Mark Evans was hired as a permanent bassist,^{[citation needed]} and AC/DC began recording their second album T.N.T., which was released in Australia in December 1975. The first AC/DC album to gain international distribution however was a compilation of tracks from the first two albums, also entitled High Voltage, which was released in May 1976. Another studio album, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was released in the same year, but only in Australia; the international version of the album was released in November 1976 in the UK and in March 1981 in the U.S., with a different track listing.

In the following years, AC/DC gained further success with their albums Let There Be Rock and Powerage. The 1978 release of Powerage marked the debut of bassist Cliff Williams (who had replaced Mark Evans), and with its harder riffs, followed the blueprint set by Let There Be Rock. The album was the last produced by Harry Vanda and George Young with Bon Scott on vocals and is claimed to be AC/DC's most underrated album.^[13] Only one single was released for Powerage – "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" – and gave AC/DC their highest chart position at the time, reaching #24. An appearance at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow during the Powerage tour was recorded and released as If You Want Blood You've Got It.^[14]

The band's sixth album, Highway To Hell, was produced by Robert "Mutt" Lange and was released in 1979. It became AC/DC's first LP to break the U.S. top 100, eventually reaching #17, and it propelled AC/DC into the top ranks of hard rock acts.^[15][16]

Death[link]

Bon Scott's grave.

67 Overhill Road, East Dulwich, London, the site of Bon Scott's death

After Highway to Hell, Bon Scott and company began developing a new album that was to eventually become Back in Black, but Scott would not be a part of its success. On 19 February 1980, Scott, 33 at the time, passed out after a night of heavy drinking in a London club called the Music Machine (currently known as the KOKO). He was left to sleep in a Renault 5 owned by an acquaintance named Alistair Kinnear, at 67 Overhill Road in East Dulwich, South London.^[17] The following afternoon, Kinnear found Scott lifeless, and alerted the authorities. Scott was rushed to King's College Hospital in Camberwell, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Pulmonary aspiration of vomit was the cause of Scott's death,^[18] and the official cause was listed as "acute alcohol poisoning" and "death by misadventure".^[19][20] Scott was cremated and his ashes were interred by his family at Fremantle Cemetery in Fremantle, Western Australia.^[21]

Inconsistencies in media accounts of Scott's death (incorrect spelling of Alistair Kinnear's first name, among others) have been cited in conspiracy theories, which suggest that Scott died of an alcohol poisoning, or was killed by exhaust fumes redirected into the car, or that Kinnear did not exist.^[19] Additionally, Scott was asthmatic, and the temperature was below freezing on the morning of his death.^[22]

Shortly after Scott's death, the remaining members of AC/DC briefly considered quitting. However, it was eventually decided that Scott would have wanted them to continue and, after the blessings of Bon's family, the band hired Brian Johnson as the new vocalist. Angus Young stated in an interview with VH1 that Scott's mother, whom all the band members personally knew, heartily approved of the band continuing, and felt that it was the only way to properly remember her son and their bandmate.^{[citation needed]}

Five months after Scott's death, AC/DC finished the work they began with Scott and released Back in Black as a tribute to him with two tracks from the album, "Hells Bells" and "Back in Black", dedicated to his memory. It is now the third best-selling album in history, behind Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Michael Jackson's Thriller. The French rock band Trust wrote their hit song "Ton dernier acte" ("Your last act") in memory of Scott in 1980. German hard rock band Kingdom Come wrote and recorded a song titled "Bon Scott" for their album, Ain't Crying for the Moon, as a tribute to the former AC/DC frontman. It is a medium- to fast-paced song, that has a driving guitar riff during the verses that is very much in the style of AC/DC.

His grave site has become a cultural landmark; more than 28 years after Scott's death, the National Trust of Australia decreed his grave important enough to be included on the list of classified heritage places.^[21][23] It is reportedly the most visited grave in Australia.^[24] On 9 July 2006, the plaque was stolen from the site.^[25]

Posthumous events[link]

Statue of Bon Scott, Fremantle, Western Australia.

Bon Scott memorial, Kirriemuir, Scotland.

AC/DC released a box set named Bonfire as a tribute to Scott on 18 November 1997. It contains four albums; a remastered version of Back in Black; a "rarities" album with alternate takes, outtakes, and stray live cuts, Volts; and two live albums, Live from the Atlantic Studios and Let There Be Rock: The Movie.

Live from the Atlantic Studios was recorded on 7 December 1977 at the Atlantic Studios in New York City.

Let There Be Rock: The Movie is a double album which was recorded on 9 December 1979 at the Pavillon de Paris in Paris, and was the soundtrack of the motion picture, AC/DC: Let There Be Rock.^[26]

AC/DC was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.^[27] Members of Scott's family joined the band at the podium to accept the honour in his place.^{[citation needed]}

In 2003 Scott's final studio album with AC/DC, 1979's Highway to Hell ranked 199 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

In 2004 the song "Highway to Hell" that Scott co-wrote with Malcolm and Angus Young ranked 254 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

In the July 2004 issue of UK magazine Classic Rock, Scott was rated as number one in a list of the "100 Greatest Frontmen," ahead of Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant.^[2]

On 6 May 2006, the town of Kirriemuir in Scotland held a service and unveiled a Caithness stone slab commemorating the singer.^[28] A message was read from long time friend and fellow member of The Valentines, Vince Lovegrove in which he said:

More recently a new street in Kirriemuir has been named after Scott.

A bronze statue of Scott was unveiled at Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour in Western Australia on 24 February 2008.^[30] The statue portrays Scott atop a Marshall amplifier.

A Screen Australia-backed film depicting Scott's life from 1974 until his death in 1980 was announced on 28 July 2011. The film will be directed by Eddie Martin and will be produced by Lizzie Atkins.^[31]

Notes[link]

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bon Scott

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bon Scott

• Walker, Clinton (1994), Highway to Hell: The Life and Times of AC/DC Legend Bon Scott, Verse Chorus Press, ISBN 0-283-06263-0 .
• Stenning, Paul (2005), AC/DC – Two Sides to Every Glory, Chrome Dreams, ISBN 1-84240-308-7 .

External links[link]

Biography portal

• AC/DC official website
• AC/DC at the Open Directory Project
• Bon Scott at the Internet Movie Database
• Bon Scott at Find a Grave