Rush

Album by Album

Martin Popoff

• Publisher: Voyageur Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780760346594
• eBook ISBN: 9780760357699
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Rush: Album by Album pays genuine tribute to this iconic rock band's discography by moderating frank, entertaining conversations about all 20 of Rush's studio albums.

Formed in Toronto in 1968, the rock trio Rush has gone on to multiplatinum success behind the distinctive high register and virtuosic bass-playing of frontman Geddy Lee, the legendary drumming and lyric-writing of Neil Peart, and the guitar heroics of Alex Lifeson. Despite having just four chart-topping singles since the release of their debut LP in 1974, Rush has nonetheless sold more than 25 million albums in the U.S. and more than 40 million worldwide.

The Canadian trio may be the definition of an "album band," and this new book from prolific rock journalist and acknowledged Rush authority Martin Popoff pays tribute to the band's discography by moderating in-depth, frank, and entertaining conversations about all 20 of Rush's studio albums. Inside, the author gathers 20 rock journalists and authors who offer insights, opinions, and anecdotes about every release.

Together, the conversations comprise a unique historical overview of the band, as well as a handsome discography. Popoff also includes loads of sidebars that provide complete track listings, details on album personnel, information on where and when the albums were recorded, and sidebar facts about the albums, their songs, and the band.

CHAPTER 1

RUSH

with Paul Gilbert, Ian Grandy, Chris Irwin, and Kirk Hammett

SIDE 1

1 Finding My Way 5:03

(Lee, Lifeson)

2 Need Some Love 2:16

(Lee, Lifeson)

3 Take a Friend 4:27

(Lee, Lifeson)

4 Here Again 7:30

(Lee, Lifeson)

SIDE 2

5 What You’re Doing 4:19

(Lee, Lifeson)

6 In the Mood 3:36

(Lee)

7 Before and After 5:33

(Lee, Lifeson)

8 Working Man 7:07

(Lee, Lifeson)

Geddy Lee: lead vocals, bass

Alex Lifeson: guitars, backing vocals

John Rutsey: drums, percussion, backing vocals

Released March 1, 1974

Recorded at Eastern Sound, Toronto, and Toronto Sound Studios, Toronto

Produced by Rush

I know because I was there. All too much is made of the comparison of brash young upstarts Rush to legends Led Zeppelin. Although on the other hand—again, because I was there—about the right amount of (or even not enough) hand wringing took place over that voice. Seriously, as kids, although we loved Rush instantly, they had verged on novelty band due to Geddy’s inhuman birdlike chirp.

Of course, any surly ’70s teen of a heavy-rock disposition quickly turned around and learned to love it, but the nagging fact in the back of the metal mind remained that due to those odd pipes, the regular rules of singing probably didn’t apply, that the band was almost instrumental with an extra instrument no one else could claim.

But here’s the thing: most definitely not enough was made of the fact that, with record one, Rush were an act bounding in a professional slab of product better than the first from Aerosmith or Kiss (but not Montrose), and admirably, even bravely, heavy for the day.

Let’s not forget that 1974 was yet another dreary year for North American metal, in fact the fifth dreary year in a row, while the UK was forging hard rock—and prog—anew seemingly on a quarterly basis. Yes, Genesis, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Heep, Purple, Budgie… we had Cactus, Mountain, the Amboy Dukes, BTO, and April Wine, and not a single prog band yet, with Kansas still a year away.

Canuckleheads in the washroom. Neil Peart replaced John Rutsey in the drum chair some five months after the March 1974 release of the band’s debut. © 1974, Bruce Cole/PlumCom Inc.

So to get Rush in gargantuan pink and black letters, with “Finding My Way,” “What You’re Doing,” “Working Man,” and instant BTO-beater “In the Mood,” this was something to be proud of in Canuckleheadland, that a band could emerge fully formed and rocking hard, self-aware, givin’ ’er. And most importantly, the band were for the most part post–blues boom, crowding around riff, although down a whole different road than the classical gas of Heep Purple and more toward Kiss and where Aerosmith and Ted Nugent would be from ’75 on (by which point Rush had evolved to a higher state).

But beyond the underground (and concert) hits and the doomy drone of “Working Man,” which is every kind of hit, let’s hear it for the deep tracks as well. There is actually quite a lot going on in “Need Some Love” and “Take a Friend,” including layers of guitars, vocals, interesting flashes of prog and sophisticated arrangements, while “Here Again” contains a pile of Geddy’s best blues wailing, over mellow doom, to match “Working Man”’s Sabbatherian version of six-string fatalism. Left among the tunes that no one dare mention is “Before and After,” which begins folk and then rocks out as hard as anything on this road-ready album.

Ultimately, the math is inescapable: there’s one non-rocker on the whole damn Rush album, and even that turns into an electricity-drenched power ballad for much of its duration, Geddy matching Alex screech for screech, as soon-to-depart timekeeper John Rutsey cranes around and sees two shooting superstars who are about to leave him in their cosmic dust.

John Rutsey, like many other musicians of his generation, was under the spell of the mighty Led Zeppelin. © 1973, Bruce Cole/PlumCom Inc.

POPOFF: So what was your assessment of this first Rush album against the others, and how much credence should be put in the “next Led Zeppelin” talk?

GILBERT: Actually, I got this record as part of a three-record set called Archives, because I think the first album that I had for them was actually All the World’s a Stage, the live one, and then I went back and got Archives. So that got me into the first album and Fly by Night and Caress of Steel. But I loved it. Alex’s guitar sound and guitar playing was real fiery and strong, and Geddy’s screamin’ away. And John Rutsey, he did the job, he made it work. Great songs and riffs on there, and sure, at the time they were accused of being very influenced by Led Zeppelin. But to me, whenever I hear people say a band sounds like other bands, it never bothers me, because it’s always a good band. Like when Frank Marino is accused of sounding like Hendrix, yeah, that’s great, more Hendrix! And obviously Rush evolved in all sorts of directions since then. But to me, that’s a great place to start to pick a band to sound like—Led Zeppelin is a pretty good one.

HAMMETT: Yeah, it’s funny. Recently I was in a very popular grocery store that had a lot of organic food and whatnot, and they had the stereo on, and they were playing the Doobie Brothers or something, and then all of a sudden I heard “Working Man,” and I thought, well, times have definitely changed. So I’m going through the produce or whatever and listening to the song, and I was remembering that exact thing, that when that album came out, everybody was saying, “Rush, yeah, they’re the new Led Zeppelin! They’re just like Led Zeppelin!” And I would hear people say, “You gotta hear this band—they sound just like Led Zeppelin!” And in retrospect, you say “Huh?” Rush is nothing like it.

But when you listen to the first alb...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Rush
• 2 Fly by Night
• 3 Caress of Steel
• 4 2112
• 5 A Farewell to Kings
• 6 Hemispheres
• 7 Permanent Waves
• 8 Moving Pictures
• 9 Signals
• 10 Grace Under Pressure
• 11 Power Windows
• 12 Hold Your Fire
• 13 Presto
• 14 Roll the Bones
• 15 Counterparts
• 16 Test for Echo
• 17 Vapor Trails
• 18 Feedback
• 19 Snakes & Arrows
• 20 Clockwork Angels
• Contributors
• Author Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright