Geddy Lee

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Geddy Lee during a Rush concert (Milan, September 21, 2004)

Geddy Lee (* 29. July 1953 in Toronto , Ontario as Gary Lee Weinrib ) is a Canadian musician. He is the singer, bassist and keyboard player for the rock band Rush .

Lee is an honored musician whose playing style and technique of the bass had a noticeable influence on various genres of rock and heavy metal and (according to their own statements) bassists such as Steve Harris of Iron Maiden , Cliff Burton of Metallica , John Myung from Dream Theater , Les Claypool from Primus, and countless others. Live, Lee not only has to take over the bass part and sing, but in most cases also takes care of the triggering of sound effects, plays keyboards or operates the synthesizer via pedals if the song being played requires a bass and a synth part at the same time. While his bass skills were never rated negatively, Lee was often criticized by Rush for his voice, at least in the early days. For some critics, his high-pitched and sometimes shrill voice was a thorn in the side. Even if his voice has become softer over the years, it has always been a point of criticism that is often criticized and where tastes differ.

The son of Polish-Jewish parents who were survivors of the Nazi concentration camps , says about the origin of his stage name (and later also his real name) "Geddy" that it is nothing other than the maiden name "Gary" pronounced by his mother with a strong accent. .

His solo album My Favorite Headache was released in 2000. In addition to composing, arranging, and performing for Rush, Lee has produced albums for various other bands, including Rocket Science .

Geddy Lee married Nancy Young in 1976. She is the mother of two children, son Julian and daughter Kyla Avril.

Together with his band members Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart , Lee was appointed officer of the Order of Canada on May 9, 1996 . The three were the first rock musicians to be honored in this way. On June 25th, 2010 Geddy Lee and his Rush bandmates Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame . Almost three years later, on April 18, 2013, Rush was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame .

In February 2013, he had a cameo on the eighth season of How I Met Your Mother .

Instruments

Geddy Lee's equipment has varied greatly in his career so far. The selection of his basses alone changed frequently. While he mainly played a Fender Precision bass at the time, as Rush was only a locally known band , he switched to Rickenbacker basses just in time for Rush's debut album . The Rickenbacker 4001 became his main bass, but a Fender Jazz Bass from the first half of the 1970s also appeared occasionally on recordings and live. Live he also enjoyed playing a Rickenbacker 4080/12 (double neck guitar with 4-string bass and 12-string guitar), which was specially made for him. The instrument can be heard on the album Exit ... Stage Left on the songs A Passage to Bangkok and Xanadu . There he plays rhythm guitar during Alex Lifeson's solos and fills the gap in the low frequency range with his bass pedals. For the recordings of the album Grace Under Pressure and the tour that followed, Lee used a Steinberger headless, which, however, had to give way to basses from the British brand Wal Basses. These were in turn replaced by his old jazz bass in 1993 when the album Counterparts was recorded . In 1996, four Fender CustomShop basses based on his Jazz Bass were added, also from the Jazz Bass model. In 1998 Fender released the "Geddy Lee Signature Jazz Bass" produced in Japan, which is based on his 1970s Jazz Bass. For the recordings of Snakes & Arrows he only used Fender jazz basses, including the Jaco Pastorius Signature Jazz model .

The synthesizers he played included the following devices: Mini Moog , Oberheim and Roland Jupiter 8, as well as Taurus bass pedals .

Web links

• Video interview with Geddy Lee on bonedo.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ How I Met Your Mother: Robin Sparkles' "PS I Love You". Retrieved March 1, 2018 .