The heartbeat of Rush has been silenced. Drummer and main lyricist for the band Neil Peart passed away last Tuesday, January 7th, after a three and a half year fight with brain cancer. In 2015 Geddy Lee had announced that Rush would no longer tour and that Neil had retired from drumming entirely but Peart’s cancer was kept secret. He said he retired to spend more time with his second wife, photographer Carrie Nuttall whom he married in 2000 and their daughter. On August 10th, 1997 soon after the conclusion of Rush’s Test For Echo Tour, Peart’s first daughter and at the time only child, Selena Taylor, 19, was killed in a single car accident on Highway 401 near the town of Brighton, Ontario. His common law wife of 23 years, Jaqueline Taylor succumbed to cancer 10 months later on June 20th, 1998. Peart attributed her death to the result of a broken heart. Wracked with grief, Peart took a long sabbatical traveling extensively on his motorcycle throughout the US and Central America covering 55,000 miles. He then wrote a book called “Ghost Rider: Travels On The Healing Road” as a chronicle of his geographical and emotional journey. Neil Peart who was considered the greatest rock drummer and lyricist of all time was 67.