#donna halper

Alex and Geddy in 2010 when Rush got their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Neil wasn't there as he was biking to their tour date in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

They got the 2,412th star. It can be found at 6752 Hollywood Blvd..

Alex and Donna Halper. Donna was instrumental in helping Rush breakout in the United States. In 1970s, she was working at WMMS, "The Buzzard" is Cleveland, Ohio and given a Rush album. She played it on air one day and the rest is history.

The Birmingham Blitz was the heavy bombing campaign carried out by the Nazi German Luftwaffe in central England between 1940-43.  Around 1,852 tons of bombs were dropped, decimating this highly populated area. Urban renewal followed to remedy the blight left in the ruins of WWII. Just twenty-five years beyond the sounding of the final warning siren, this bleak, industrial, noisy town would bring together the group known as Black Sabbath whose aesthetic reflected the working class attitude and established the prototypical Heavy Metal sound, fashion, and ethos.  Two other English groups representing this rising culture were Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.  Collectively, codes of authenticity were established that has given identity to so many subsequent musicians seeking to flout the pervasive commercialism characterized in John Kenneth Galbraith’s Affluent Society.

Codes of authenticity established by Heavy Metal culture largely characterized a young, white, male, blue-collar demographic base. They promoted opposition to authority and separateness from the rest of society.  Performers appear both completely devoted to their music and loyal to the subculture that supports it.  The sounds they generated were aggressive, distorted, and very loud. Their uniform consisted of torn blue jeans, black T-shirts (often displaying the logo of their preferred band), boots, and black leather or denim jackets, and their long unkempt hair flowing down their back. Following these codes insured acceptance into this alienated culture. It did not take long for this culture to increase its population as intransigence implanted in the wake of Vietnam, high profile assassinations, race riots, and other signs of unraveling.  

Across the Atlantic Ocean in the Commonwealth Realm of Canada, a similar counter-culture youth movement was percolating within the booming suburban towns. The postwar elimination of racially based immigration policies brought streams of European refugees, Chinese job seekers, as well as construction laborers from places like Italy and Portugal to double the population in areas such as Toronto. Yonge Street witnessed a very influential music scene represented by such luminaries as Robbie Robertson, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot.  

In one of these suburban towns of Toronto there were a few schoolmates who discovered a mutual obsession in music and decided to begin jamming together as a group. Alex Zivojinovich, Gary Lee Weinrib, and John Rutsey, enamored with groups such as Cream and Blue Cheer likewise played as a power trio. A few months later, a new group from England, Led Zeppelin, visited Toronto for the first time in February of 1969. In August, Zeppelin returned to Toronto just days after the Woodstock Peace Festival ended, and in the audience was the young impressionable trio from Willowdale who aspired to begin their rock and roll journey as RUSH.  

Their first independently produced album contained sounds and themes deriving from the same places as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, and others:  a paean to the blue-collar, industrial, masculine, alienated, and anonymous laboring class reflected that their home experience.  They adopted the same codes of authenticity, and maintained them for the next 40+ years, endearing them to a loyal audience who rejoiced in the group’s unpretentious approach to musical storytelling.  It is not surprising that their initial breakthrough would occur at such rust belt cities such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. Donna Halper, the pioneering DJ at WMMS in Cleveland explains that upon first receiving a copy of Rush’s first eponymous record, she chose to play “Working Man” merely because it was a lengthy track that enabled her to run to the restroom.  But little did she know that the audience hearing about the banality and redundancy of the laborers life would immediately react to what they thought was a new Led Zeppelin song.  Now as Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and John Rutsey, Rush would be launched.

Halper’s identity as a very early agent in breaking the glass ceiling in the male-dominated world of radio is also profoundly significant when considering codes of authenticity. The lingering inside joke about the lack of women in Rush’s audience might be traced to these codes and the Honeymooners-like paternalistic mood of the postwar era.  Second-wave feminism and the LGBTQ community were just beginning to agitate for changes in the workplace, then the home, church, and other institutions. Even with Neil Peart’s replacing of John Rutsey in the timekeeping role, the group would continue to promote an Apollonian rather than Dionysian approach to their work keeping them mainly in the masculine domain.

Perhaps the most impressive code is the total devotion that also undergirds the longevity of these groups. The commitment to maintaining values leads to a recalcitrance in both the performers and the audience, and avoids the pitfalls of commercial fickleness. Rush was a group that was in the race to stay and to make the most of the distance. They accepted who they were without compromise and became the defiant voice of the Working Man.  Now, as they return to their gardens so nurtured and protected, they can resolutely say that all is for the best.