Traveling Music: Playing Back the Soundtrack to My Life and Times
by Neil Peart
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Book Summary Information
Author: Neil PeartEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-09-01
ISBN: 1550226665
Number of pages: 440
Publisher: ECW Press
Book Reviews of Traveling Music: Playing Back the Soundtrack to My Life and Times
Book Review: I've never thought I'd know so much about Frank Sinatra!
Summary: 5 Stars
Both the content and the cohesion of this memoir are clear, strong, and good. The overall architecture is better than Ghost Rider and Roadshow, actually coming full circle both literally and metaphorically.
He's a fun person, and it's a blast to get invited along to travel in his Beamer (I wonder if his wife and his Mom are as scandalized of the speeds he drives at as I am) with great music for a nice hike and some bird watching. I found myself thinking, "I love that group, too!", or, "Hum, I've never heard that song, I'll have to go online and have a listen!" I'm amused and delighted he stays in cheap roadside motels, and buys pre-packaged sandwiches and peanut butter cups from convenience stores, because I hope and expect him to be more comfortable in life because he's worked so hard for it and deserves it. However, he's just a regular guy from a regular background, and harbors no snobbishness about such things.
Neil relates happy and horrible life events in great detail from birth to the day he joins Rush on this drive. It's reaffirming to realize that a shy person from an average background can pen such moving prose after experiencing and observing his world. Few writers can observe a vermillion flycatcher on a plain moment in a plain bird watching trip and form it into a work of art with the tender, fleeting joy he and the others around him witnessed.
I now understand what it is to be a "burning spirit", a musician that plays with such "intensity and vulnerability", so that they take "music from sidewalk entertainment to compelling art." (Sounds like somebody we know!) Neil's provocative chapter I nicknamed "The Superconductor Essay" (after the Rush song on the same theme) gives me a lot to think about in music appreciation, for I--a non-musician--never listened to music the way he does. I used to think I did, because like Neil I like a lot of diverse things, but I've never thought about why I like them. His thoughts on the intention by a musician or any artist that really got me thinking about his point of view. To his credit, a non-musician can easily follow. He is open-minded, and challenges himself to listen to musical styles that don't appeal to him, for example a country singer in a roadside restaurant that "really sang that song, from the inside out."
Moreover, he doesn't name names in what he dislikes, so the tome doesn't come off as a bitchy-moany manifesto.
It's touching how uncorrupted he is in the corrupt world of the music business. He befriends and encourages other artists, including young up & coming ones. He has no blinders on to music: caring nothing of the artist's age, race, religion, or economic status. And boy howdy does he love music--he shares how he tunelessly yelps along with Frank Sinatra CDs, or the fun he had at recent The Tragically Hip concert.
As always in Peart's writings, great lessons in geology, history, vocabulary, and the music industry are included.
If you've assumed `rock stars' have it `easy'-- you're wrong. It's amazing that he's the sweet man he is despite for how he's suffered in his personal life. Neil shares the secret: perseverance, grit, and hard work. Great memoir, give it a read.
Summary of Traveling Music: Playing Back the Soundtrack to My Life and Times
The music of Frank Sinatra, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and many other artists provides the score to the reflections of a musician on the road in this memoir of Neil Peart's travels from Los Angeles to Big Bend National Park. The emotional associations and stories behind each album Peart plays guide his recollections of his childhood on Lake Ontario, the first bands that he performed with, and his travels with the band Rush. The evocative and resonant writing vividly captures the meanderings of a musical mind, leading rock enthusiasts to discover inside information about Rush and the musical inspirations of a rock legend.
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