Geddy Lee

Geddy Lee Weinrib (born Gary Lee Weinrib, July 29, 1953) is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the rock group Rush.

Lee was born Gary Lee Weinrib on July 29, 1953, in the North York neighbourhood of Willowdale, Toronto, to Morris Weinrib (born Moshe Meir Weinrib; 1920–1965), from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, and Mary "Manya" Rubinstein (born Malka Rubinstein; 1925–2021), who was born in Warsaw and later grew up in Wierzbnik.

His parents were Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland who had survived the ghetto in Starachowice (where they met), followed by their imprisonments at Auschwitz and later Dachau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps during the Holocaust and World War II.

They were in their teens when they were initially imprisoned at Auschwitz.

"It was kind of surreal pre-teen shit", says Lee, describing how his father bribed guards to bring his mother shoes.

After a period, his mother was transferred to Bergen-Belsen and his father to Dachau.

When the war ended four years later, and the Allies liberated the camps, Morris set out in search of Manya and found her at a Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp.

They married there and eventually emigrated to Canada.

When Lee started school, his name was incorrectly registered.

As a result, Lee grew up thinking his middle name was "Lorne".

As a teenager, he saw a copy of his birth certificate and discovered that his middle name was "Lee".

Lee's father died young, which forced Lee's mother to work to support their three children by running the Newmarket, Ontario, variety store that her husband had owned and managed.

Lee has suggested that his father's death was probably a factor in his becoming a musician: "It was a terrible blow that I lost him, but the course of my life changed because my mother couldn't control us."

He has said that losing his father at such an early age made him aware of how "quickly life can disappear", which inspired him from then on to get the most out of his life and music.

Lee turned his basement into practice space for a band he formed with high-school friends.

After the band began earning income from small performances at high-school shows or other events, he decided to drop out of high school and play rock and roll professionally.

His mother was devastated when he told gave her the news.

"All the shit I put her through", he says, "on top of the fact that she just lost her husband. I felt like I had to make sure that it was worth it. I wanted to show her that I was a professional, that I was working hard, and wasn't just a fuckin' lunatic."

Jweekly featured Lee's reflections on his mother's experiences as a refugee and on his own Jewish heritage.

Lee's name, Geddy, was derived from his mother's heavy Polish accented pronunciation of his given first name, Gary.

This was picked up by his friends in school, leading Lee to adopt it as his stage name and later his legal name, Geddy Lee Weinrib.

After Rush had become a widely recognized rock group, Lee told the group's drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart, about his mother's early life.

Peart then wrote the lyrics to "Red Sector A", which was inspired by her ordeal.

Lee joined the band in September 1968 at the request of his childhood friend Alex Lifeson, replacing original bassist and frontman Jeff Jones.

The song, for which Lee wrote the music, was released on the band's 1984 album Grace Under Pressure.

The lyrics include the following verse:

Lee began playing music in school when he was 10 or 11 and got his first acoustic guitar at 14.

In school, he first played drums, trumpet and clarinet.

However, learning to play instruments in school was not satisfying to Lee, and he took basic piano lessons independently.

His interest increased dramatically after listening to some of the popular rock groups at the time.

His early influences included Jack Bruce of Cream, John Entwistle of The Who, Jeff Beck, and Procol Harum.

"I was mainly interested in early British progressive rock", said Lee.

"That's how I learned to play bass, emulating Jack Bruce and people like that."

Bruce's style of music was also noticed by Lee, who liked that "his sound was distinctive – it wasn't boring."

Along with his Rush bandmates – guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart – Lee was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on May 9, 1996.

The trio was the first rock band to be so honoured as a group.

Lee's solo effort, My Favourite Headache, was released in 2000.

Lee's style, technique, and skill on the bass have inspired many rock musicians such as Cliff Burton of Metallica, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, John Myung of Dream Theater, Les Claypool of Primus, Steve Di Giorgio of Sadus, Death and Testament, and Tim Commerford of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.

In 2006, Lee was ranked 13th by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Vocalists of All Time.

In 2013, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after 14 years of eligibility.