Progressive rock band Rush’s bass guitar extraordinaire, Geddy Lee got extremely bored during the pandemic. He is not someone who likes idle time, so he decided to write an autobiography. I have never read the autobiography of a musician before, so I really do not know where the bar stands for these things, but this one was quite an interesting read. A musician who spent 40+ years on the road is going to have some stories. Even without his music-related stories, his life is quite interesting.
His parents met as teenage, Polish concentration camp inmates in Auschwitz. They were eventually moved to separate camps during the war, but whatever spark they had upon meeting, managed to carry on throughout the war. They were both imprisoned for nearly the entire duration of WWII. It is a miracle that either one survived, let alone both. Many of their family members did not. Upon liberation, Geddy’s father walked hundreds of miles from Dachau to Bergen-Belsen to reunite with his love. They actually married in the officer’s quarters of Bergen-Belsen as it was then being used to house the newly freed prisoners.
His parents found that many Jews were not warmly welcomed back to their native Poland, and more often than not, all their property had been appropriated. With this knowledge, Geddy’s parents traveled to Toronto, where a relative had fled to at the start of the war, to start a new life. With almost no belongings, they started their new life. Little by little, they were able to buy their own house in a Jewish neighborhood in the Toronto suburbs. They eventually had three children, one of which being Geddy.
Their life was continuously improving as Geddy’s father manages to start a successful general store. Then tragedy hits. Geddy’s father passes away after a brief illness when Geddy was only 12. His father was only 45. The effects of six years of forced labor in the prison camps had taken their toll. His heart gave out.
The biography details the Jewish mourning customs which lasts 11 months. A prayer is said every day and music is not permitted. Unfortunately for Geddy, Bar mitzvahs often utilize music to help celebrate the event, and Geddy’s fell within the mourning timeframe. Perhaps this starvation from music made him appreciate it more than he would have otherwise. He started his first band shortly after this mourning period. He eventually started one with his classmate, Aleksandar Živojinović (stage name, Alex Lifeson, Geddy’s birth name was Gary Lee Weinrib). Both Geddy and Alex had an insatiable appetite for music. Neither of their parents was all that keen of having musicians for sons, but there was no stopping them. They played as often as they could and eventually, when the drinking age was lowered to 18 just as they turned 18, they were able to play in local bars. They were able to make a modest living playing music. They were also able to hone their craft. Eventually they gained a fairly large following in their native Toronto and managed to record an album with a song that somehow caught the attention of a Cleveland, Ohio radio station DJ. The song Working Man seemed to strike a nerve with the largely blue-collar audience. This led to an audience in the US as well as Canada.
They toured like crazed musical gypsies. Travelling from show to show in a station wagon, they took turns driving while one member slept on top of the gear in the back of the car. Eventually the station wagon became a van, then an RV, and then a tour bus. I don’t know how they did it. They played 250 shows a year for a decade, living out of different vehicles until they made it.
The book then chronicles the production of their various albums and the departure of their longtime producer, Terry Brown. It also covers the events of their final tour. Their esteemed drummer, Neil Peart, suffered the loss of his teenage daughter to a car accident and then the loss of his wife to cancer all within a year. His life was shattered and he roamed North America on a motorcycle for nearly two years trying to make sense of things. During this time the band’s status was up in the air. Eventually, Neil, was able to build his life back. He found a new wife and felt ready to resume his career as a musician after five years adrift. The band was back in business for another decade, until Neil had enough. They had their final tour in 2015. Fate then turned on Neil once again as, sadly, he passed away from brain cancer in 2020. Geddy talks about the difficulty in accepting that he will never see him again. Geddy still appears randomly on stages to perform with others, but Rush as a live band is officially gone.
This book was a very interesting read, particularly if you a fan of Rush’s music.