Thread: RIP Neal Peart

Neal just might have been rock's best drummer. He could utterly destroy a wall of Tamas, all in perfect syncopation of course. He wrote intelligent lyrics, and was a deeply insightful and spiritual man, unlike party animals like Keith Moon or John Bonham. Here he is at his finest:

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Neal just might have been rock's best drummer. He could utterly destroy a wall of Tamas, all in perfect syncopation of course. He wrote intelleigent lyrics, and was a deeply insightful and spiritual man, unlike party animals like Keith Moon or John Bonham. Here he is at his finest:

I find that there's nothing more satisfying than to see an musician perform his craft before an audience.

IMO... The Best precision drummer there ever was. RIP Neil! Even though they quit playing music a few years ago I will miss him. My Drummer Mentor!

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Neal just might have been rock's best drummer. He could utterly destroy a wall of Tamas, all in perfect syncopation of course. He wrote intelligent lyrics, and was a deeply insightful and spiritual man, unlike party animals like Keith Moon or John Bonham. Here he is at his finest:

Just to clarify, Neil Peart did not play or write lyrics on the first Rush album, which included "Working Man." John Rutsey played drums on the first album. Peart started with the second album, Fly by Night.

Rock and Roll Heaven gets another one of the all time greats.

~RIP Neal~

Pete <:-{

Originally Posted by Brontosaurus

Just to clarify, Neil Peart did not play or write lyrics on the first Rush album, which included "Working Man." John Rutsey played drums on the first album. Peart started with the second album, Fly by Night.

Thanks for the clarification, Brontosaurus-Though I've seen some Rush docs, I forgot about that. In any event, he handled himself pretty well on the live version Roy posted.

Tragic loss, a young man at 67, an enormous talent, whose last years were a tragedy. Read his book, his daughter was killed in a car crash near their cottage in Muskoka, the chief of the local police department showed up at their door to tell them their 19 year old daughter had died.

His wife truly lost it, they became more and more estranged, she'd given up, then was relieved when she was diagnosed with cancer, felt that this was her way to join their daughter, refused treatment and passed away - Neal felt she died of a broken heart. He then just walked out one day, decided to travel on his motorcycle.

I grew up in the Beach in Toronto, still here, Geddy Lee used to live on Glen Manor Drive, all of us kids would walk by every morning on the way to high school, he'd usually be around at that time getting into his red Porsche, and he'd always wave back to us. We'd see all the guys of Rush along with Kim Mitchell (Max Webster) frequently walking along the boardwalk at the beach, they always said hi to everyone.

Every New Years Eve, all through high school, we saw Rush and Max Webster at Maple Leaf Gardens, an epic show every year, we always had front row floors (great benefit of having a Father who could always get the best tickets) and Rush was such a huge part of my youth, and my identity living in this area in Toronto.

He was an epic talent, wrote all the lyrics, his drumming was legendary, Rolling Stone had him below Bonham, Keith Moon, and Ginger Baker, personally, I'd put him equal if not better than Bonham, his technical skills were unrivalled. I can see Bonham and Baker on the list of best rock drummers, but don't know how Moon made it there....

RIP - Neal Peart, been listening to lots of their stuff.

I always thought this song was about an area in the Beach, it was called, "The Nature Trail", us kids called it, "The Nache", could walk to school through it, lots of parties there, people were always going for walks in it, or just outside the Trail was the street where Geddy's house was on Glen Manor, my house was down the street from his. It's still there, really a spectacular oasis in the city.

Great story Phrank. Thanks for sharing. And i agree on you choice of drummers and status/ranking. Not sure many people know about Ginger Baker. Lol.

"If you believe in forever then life is but a one night stand
If there's a rock and roll heaven then you know they have a hell of a band"

The The Righteous Brothers 1974

Yeah, great stories, Phrank-And I agree that he was better than the others on that list, much as I love Zeppelin and the Who (kind of agnostic on Cream). I wonder how high they rank Stewart Copeland of The Police; listen to the outro of "Message in a Bottle"-he's up there too.

So sad about his later years. I remember seeing him profiled on CBS Sunday Morning IIRC, and he talked about his motorcycle tour, learning some new style of drumming, etc. Totally impressive and more down to earth and "deep" than a lot of aged rockers who can no longer really even talk their brains are so fried (looking at you Osborne and Richards).

Kicking myself for never going to see them live, but I only really became a big fan in recent years-God knows why. They were huge with the nerdy intellectual set when I was in high school in the early 80's, when I was going through my Stones/Zep/Doors etc. phase (I wasn't a big fan of much of the New Wave stuff all over MTV at the time).