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Noteworthy Then

9/12/1952 Neil Peart of Rush born

 

1952 Neil Peart of Rush born on this day in 1952 near Hamilton, Ontario.  The future drummer and primary lyricist for Rush grew up glued to a transistor radio dialed in to radio stations in Canada and Buffalo, New York, just a Great Lake away from his hometowns of Hamilton and St. Catherines, Ontario.  He started with piano lessons early on, but was so much more inclined to be banging on things that his parents got him a rudimentary drum and arranged for lessons with a promise to buy him a drum set if he kept at it for a full year.  The full kit was his 14th birthday present.  At 18, he moved to England, but got little traction developing a musical career, so he returned to Canada and enlisted in a bar band named Hush before auditioning to be the replacement for John Rutsey in Rush.  Peart became a member of Rush just two weeks before the band embarked on its first US tour in 1974.

The Rock world was stunned on January 7, 2020 with news that Peart died of brain cancer.  News of the Rush drummer having the disease had been kept under wraps since it was diagnosed three years earlier.

 

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on September 12 included...

 

1970 Pink Floyd has $40,000 in equipment stolen in New Orleans. 

1975 Pink Floyd releases Wish You Were Here.   

1980 David Bowie releases Scary Monsters. 

1980 Ozzy Osbourne releases Blizzard Of Oz. 1989 Aerosmith releases Pump. 

1990 Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie announced they will  leave Fleetwood Mac at end of current tour.   

1995 Red Hot Chili Peppers release One Hot Minute.

1996 Kenny Wayne Shepherd does unannounced club concert when his tour bus breaks down in Athens, GA.   

1996 Oasis cancels remaining US tour dates after Gallagher brothers get into a fist fight. 

1999 Graham Nash breaks both legs in boat accident in Hawaii.     

2006 Peter Frampton releases instrumental album Fingerprint.   

2006 Bob Seger releases Face The Promise.   

2006 Who open US tour in Philadelphia.   

2008 Metallica releases Death Magnetic.

2018 The Maton Mastersound guitar George Harrison played at the last Beatles performance at the Cavern Club in Liverpool is auctioned for $455,000.