I Wanna Be a Rock Star

One of the most interesting contributions to popular culture by the Baby Boom generation may be the ambition to become a rock star. A lot of factors contribute to this including, obviously, the birth of rock and roll music which many suggest coincides with the birth of Elvis Presley in 1935. In 1946, Leo Fender introduced the Broadcaster, a solid body electric guitar whose successors would yield an entire generation of fathers shouting, "Turn that crap down!" Radio was huge.

It's harder to imagine members of the Great Generation fantasizing about being the next Glen Miller or Artie Shaw. For one thing, to make music like that, you needed more than a band, you needed an orchestra. Four guys in a garage didn't cut it. Still, the Great Generation was the first to be exposed to music on demand. Turn the dial, wait for the tubes to warm up (radios had vacuum tubes in those days), and the kitchen became a dance floor. But unless you were part of an orchestra, it wasn't the kind of music just anyone could make.

All that changed in the 1950s. And in the 1960s, with the boom in folk music, all a person needed was a guitar and they were in business. That was always true, more or less, for country music. My father played his guitar and sang on the radio in the late 1940s. You've seen, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou -- well, apart from George Clooney and the four-part harmony, that was my father. I've followed in his footsteps and gotten on stage at nearly every opportunity.

But the idea of starting a band -- four people with bass, drums, lead and rhythm guitars and a vocalist -- that seemed to really take hold in the 1960s. In time, people would play air guitar to follow along with the stars. Now we have Guitar Hero and anyone can hold the rapt attention of a virtual audience. I don't know whether we're all just a bunch of frustrated musicians or what, but the idea of being a rock star has nearly become a phenomenon. In October 2007 alone, 1.4 million copies of Guitar Hero III were sold. That's a lot.

Maybe it just comes down to the music. I mean, it's accessible. Unlike the big band sound, its possible to take a rock and roll song and match it with four guys in the garage or arrange it for solo acoustic guitar and do an unplugged version. After we've jammed together elbow to elbow, inches from the stage at a concert, we go home, switch on the Nintendo and play until the wee hours. I still don't understand it, I can't explain it, but it's something we do. Or many of us do. Or some of us. And some just dream of doing it.

There's nothing wrong with dreaming.