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He learned to play the piccolo since it was less expensive than a flute and later in 1906, joined the St. Thomas Municipal Band. With an aim toward perfecting his skills, he began taking correspondence courses with Dr. Hugh Clark at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1910, he left the Municipal Band and formed his ensemble—the Adams Juvenile Band. It wasn’t long before the band was a popular fixture on his island’s main city, Charlotte Amalie.
After the unit was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Adams’s life began to spiral into one setback after another, most devastatingly a fire that took the life of his daughter and destroyed his home in St. Thomas in 1932. Lost in the fire, too, was a sizable collection of his scholarly writings and unpublished compositions. Upon his return to St. Thomas, he resumed his educational pursuits and journalism atbut this was soon interrupted by the onset of World War II.