them. I remember Geddy looking surprised. He was wearing these big platform shoes, I was afraid he was going to fall over, but that was the fashion back then. I remember Geddy being surprised when someone called out, ‘Play “Working Man!” I think that kind of gave the band the idea that maybe they were going to become popular after all.”
John-Rutsey
Halper touches on the transition from John Rutsey to Neil on drums, which occurred at the time all of this was happening. Rumors circulated later that John Rutsey had a drug problem but Halper says those were just rumors fueled by John’s diabetes. Today, drugs are available for diabetics to take any time, anywhere, but back then, diabetics had to schedule appointments with doctors to get insulin, making it all but impossible for someone like Rutsey to go on the road for a long tour.
As it happened, Geddy and Alex were wanting to move in a new musical direction, so they saw John’s leaving as an opportunity. Halper says she doubts Alex and Geddy would have kicked John out of the band. “I don’t think they would have done that,” she says.walk fame“They’re good guys. But I think when Rutsey had to leave because of his health, I think they saw it like, ‘This is a blessing.’”
Halper describes how she and two of her friends, upset that Rush was being passed over at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, led the effort to get the band recognized on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010. “It was wrong, it was outrageous,” she said of the annual snub by the Rock Hall. “And so about three of us got together, business people who love Rush as much as I do, and we put our headsHalper Booktogether and thought, ‘What can we do?’ and we decided we would submit an application to the Hollywood Walk of Fame Committee, and in the end, they got a star. I hoped that it would say something to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: ‘Look at these millions of fans, why don’t you induct this band?’ and finally Rush was inducted.”
Halper, assistant professor of communication at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., has just come out with a revised edition of her book on the pioneering role of women in broadcasting called Invisible Stars (M.E. Sharpe).
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