Rush

Neatly chopping up the band’s career into three segments, Rush’s Sector series of box sets breaks the Canadian prog rockers' early musical legacy into easy-to-digest morsels. On Sector 2, we find the band transitioning from its early developmental period into mainstream success with the albums A Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, and the live album Exit…Stage Left…

Sector 3, the third installment of Rush’s Sector series of box sets, finds the band diving headlong into the ‘80s with a more synth-oriented approach. Featuring the albums Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, and the live album A Show of Hands, this period of Rush's career finds them focusing more on Geddy Lee’s multi-layered synthesizer excursions and finds guitarist Alex Lifeson moving into more of a support role as he begins to experiment with a more effects-heavy sound…

Digital (Web) version contains one bonus track A Passage to Bangkok (Live in Manchester). To celebrate 40 years of Permanent Waves, Rush has reissued their iconic studio album as a super deluxe edition box set containing 3 LPs, 2 CDs, and several fan collectibles. These live tracks come from three stops on the Permanent Waves World Tour 1980: Manchester Apollo, Manchester, England; Hammersmith Odeon, London, England; and Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, Missouri. Permanent Waves is the band’s first of many iconic visits to Le Studio recording studio in Morin Heights, Quebec which has been nicknamed Rush’s Abbey Road Studios.

On 1977's A Farewell to Kings it quickly becomes apparent that Rush had improved their songwriting and strengthened their focus and musical approach. Synthesizers also mark their first prominent appearance on a Rush album, a direction the band would continue to pursue on future releases…

Rush is a Canadian rock band composed of Geddy Lee (bass, lead vocals, keyboards), Alex Lifeson (guitars, backing vocals) and Neil Peart (drums, percussion, lyrics). Forming in 1968, the band went through several configurations until arriving at its current line-up when Peart replaced original drummer John Rutsey in July 1974, two weeks before the group's first United States tour…

Feature-length documentary about the band + full-length, never-before-seen performances of: "Best I Can" and "Working Man" (with John Rutsey, performed live at Laura Secord SS, Spring 1974), "La Villa Strangiato" (live at Pinkpop 1979), "Between Sun And Moon" (recorded at Hartford, CT, June 28th 2002), "Far Cry" and "Entre Nous" from the Snakes & Arrows tour and "Bravado" and "YYZ" from the R30 tour.

It's unfortunate that Tom Rush's third album has such a strong reputation among rock listeners – not that it doesn't deserve it, but it sort of distracts them from this album, which was as natural a fit for rock listeners as any folk album of its era. Rush's debut album is filled with a hard, bluesy brand of folk music that's hard on the acoustic guitar strings and not much easier on his voice; he sings stuff like "Long John" and "If Your Man Gets Busted" with a deep, throaty baritone that's only a little less raw than John Hammond's was while doing his work of the same era. Rush had the misfortune to be equated with Bob Dylan, but he had a more easygoing and accessible personality that comes out on numbers here such as Woody Guthrie's "Do-Re-Mi" and Kokomo Arnold's "Milkcow Blues," which are thoroughly enjoyable and quietly (but totally) beguiling. Additionally, he isn't such a purist that he felt above covering a Leiber & Stoller number such as "When She Wants Good Lovin'."

Although Albert King is pictured on the front cover and has the lion's share of tracks on this excellent compilation, six of the fourteen tracks come from Rush's shortlived tenure with the label and are some of his very best. Chronologically, these are his next recordings after the Cobra sides and they carry a lot of the emotional wallop of those tracks, albeit with much loftier production values with much of it recorded in early stereo. Oddly enough, some of the material ("All Your Love," "I'm Satisfied [Keep on Loving Me Baby]") were remakes – albeit great ones – of tunes that Cobra had already released as singles! But Rush's performance of "So Many Roads" (featuring one of the greatest slow blues guitar solos of all time) should not be missed at any cost.