A big Happy 60th Birthday today to one of the crown jewels of music, especially percussion, the consummate, influential, innovative, and one of a kind drummer Neil Peart, who with his band Rush, has been a force majeure (Latin for “superior force”) for almost four decades now in the universe of rock and roll.
The appeal and charisma of Neil Peart spawns a cult which is one of the most loyal in all of music. While the band Rush is revered and loved wholeheartedly by legions of fans spanning many generations, the general opinion of Neil Peart and his approach to his instrument is unprecedented; scores of musicians, and non-musicians, hold the man in the highest regard, constant platitudes run sky high for him, he’s regarded as one of the best individuals to ever get behind a drum kit, and what he does behind that drum kit – the fast, smooth, effortless, almost robotic, machine like, all gears moving forward, every beat and meter exact and precision wound – is almost like a Swiss watch in motion. It’s a sight to behold. Influenced to a certain extent by jazz titan Buddy Rich and rock legend Keith Moon, Peart’s drum passages and to quote a Rush song “Mystic Rhythms” have put the band in the highest forms of complexly arranged rhythms and melodies, all expertly backbeated by Peart, complemented on bass by Geddy Lee and capped to a T by the great fretwork of Alex Lifeson. The band is bigger than ever, the allure of Neil Peart still blindly shines wherever he and his fans go.
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