Traveling music : playing back the soundtrack to my life and times

Neil Peart decided to drive his BMW Z-8 automobile from L.A. to Big Bend National Park, in Southwest Texas. As he sped along “between the gas-gulping SUVs and asthmatic Japanese compacts clumping in the left lane, and the roaring, straining semis in the right,” he acted as his own DJ, lining up the CDs chronologically and according to his possible moods. “Not only did the music I listened to accompany my journey, but it also took me on sidetrips, through memory and fractals of associations, threads reaching back through my whole life in ways I had forgotten, or had never suspected.... Sifting through those decades and those memories, I realized that I wasn't interested in recounting the facts of my life in purely autobiographical terms, but rather ... in trying to unweave the fabric of my life and times. As one who was never much interested in looking back, because always too busy moving forward, I found that once I opened those doors to the past, I became fascinated with the times and their effect on me. The songs and the stories I had taken for granted suddenly had a resonance that had clearly echoed down the corridors of my entire life, and I felt a thrill of recognition, and the sense of a kind of adventure. A travel story, but not so much about places, but about music and memories.” In March 2003, Neil Peart, the international bestselling author of Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road, a haunting, critically acclaimed, and award-nominated memoir, was thinking about life's eternal "Now what?" questions. The previous year, Peart, the lyricist and Hall of Fame drummer of the legendary rock band Rush, and his bandmates, Alex and Geddy, had released a bestselling album, Vapor Trails, and toured North, Central, and South America. Now he was enjoying some time at home in California with his wife, Carrie, but at the same time feeling an author's creative urge to write a new book, without knowing yet what it should be.Needing time to think about book ideas and other "Now what?" questions, Peart decided to drive his new dream sports car, a BMW Z-8, on a six-day, 2,500-mile roundtrip journey to Big Bend National Park, in southwest Texas, and listen to "traveling music" all the way, by artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Linkin Park, Miles Davis to Radiohead, Patsy Cline to Madonna. As he drove and listened, he experienced the traveling essence of music itself, and the songs took him on voyages of memory, imagination, emotion, sensation -- and when he reached Big Bend Park on the third day, creative inspiration: "A story could be written just around the music I've listened to on this trip."Written with the most resonant distillation of words and rhythm, in the poetic sense of being suggestive of meaning, but allowing the reader's own music to create the soundtrack, Traveling Music is Peart's exhilarating, inspiring, appreciative celebration of excellence in the artists who inspired his own creative odyssey, from childhood to maturity -- growing up in Ontario, Canada, living in London and the United States, and a near-lifetime of constant world travel as an adventurer, including a characteristic, month-long bicycle trip through West Africa and drumming with an African master. Through the power of his storytelling, all of the past and present comes alive, in music and memory, songs and stories.

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.

"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."--Barnesandnoble.com