Boston Globe profiles the geneticist and Alzheimer’s expert who played organ on Aerosmith’s last album:
It was 2009 when Dr. Rudy Tanzi was asked to appear in a GQ magazine photo shoot for a campaign called “Rock Stars of Science.” The shoot, organized by the Geoffrey Beene Foundation, was aimed at raising awareness of scientific research by matching accomplished researchers with famous musicians. Tanzi, who heads Massachusetts General Hospital’s Genetics and Aging Research Unit and teaches neurology at Harvard Medical School, was paired with a fellow Bostonian, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry.
“After the shoot, I was talking to Joe, and I said that actually I play,” Tanzi said. “He said we should jam some time.”
Three years later, Tanzi really is a rock star of science. He recorded organ tracks for Aerosmith’s just-released new album, “Music From Another Dimension!,” he co-wrote the book “Super Brain” with physician and mind-body expert Deepak Chopra, and he adapted the book into a PBS special, which he also hosts in a Carl Sagan-like manner. Both “Music From Another Dimension!” and the book “Super Brain,” which offers techniques to use your brain most effectively, went on sale this month. The book hit No. 7 on The New York Times Hardcover Advice & Misc. bestseller list, while the record debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. The television special will begin airing nationally on Saturday.
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“He’s easily the best Hammond player I’d ever heard face to face,” said Perry, who sings lead vocals on “Something,” while Steven Tyler steps back to man the drums.
Perry said the work ethic Tanzi developed over years in the lab applies perfectly to music.
“Whether you feel like it or not, or feel inspired or not, you have to get in there and do the work,” Perry said. “Sometimes you don’t get anything. The only way you’re going to get it is if you keep trying, and that’s the same pattern that he does with science.”