Working Men: Rush Announce Deluxe Vinyl Reissue of Debut LP

A little over four decades after its first release, Canadian rockers Rush will reissue their first album on high-quality vinyl in April.

Rush, the band’s self-titled debut on the band’s own label Moon Records, was a primitive but promising start for the band. Singer/bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer John Rutsey (who, within a year’s time, would be replaced by current drummer Neil Peart) turned out a low-fidelity but enthusiastic batch of originals bearing a stronger resemblance to other ’60s and ’70s hard rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Cream than their later, more progressive, genre-defining works.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h59mDlBSt7o]

Only 3,500 copies of the album were pressed on first run, but one of those made their way to Cleveland disc jockey Donna Halper of WMMS-FM, who added album cut “Working Man” to her playlists. The album was quickly repressed and reissued by Mercury Records from the same album master; later pressings featured a remix by producer Terry Brown, who would helm several of the band’s classics including 2112 and Moving Pictures.

This special box set reissue, part of UMe’s “ReDISCovered” vinyl series, goes back to the original analog stereo master, “cut to copper plates using the Direct Metal Mastering (DMM) process at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.” The 200-gram audiophile vinyl pressing will be packaged in a recreation of the original Moon Records sleeve, down to the original matrix number etched into the disc, and will also feature “a 16″ x 22″ reproduction of the first Rush promo poster, three 5″ x 7″ lithographs of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and John Rutsey, a 12″ x 12″ Rush Family Tree poster, and a digital download card,” all in a lidded custom box.

You can pre-order the set at the link below; it’s available on April 15.

Rush: ReDISCovered Box Set (originally released as Moon Records MN-100, 1974 – reissued Mercury/UMe, 2014)

Finding My Way
Need Some Love
Take a Friend
Here Again
What You’re Doing
In the Mood
Before and After
Working Man

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Mike Duquette

Mike Duquette (Founder) was fascinated with catalog music ever since he was a teenager. A 2009 graduate of Seton Hall University with a B.A. in journalism, Mike paired his profession with his passion through The Second Disc, one of the first sites to focus on all reissue labels great and small. His passion for reissues turned into a career, having written at and worked for all three major catalogue music labels and contributing to Allmusic, Billboard, Discogs, City Pages and Ultimate Classic Rock. He's penned liner notes for Verve, Chess, Mondo and Soul Music Records.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Mike lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife, a cat named Ravioli, twin daughters and a large yet tasteful collection of music.