Rock School

Most days, Atlanta resident Glenn Zimmerman, 53, is a vice president at a video distribution company; for a few days last year, however, he was a rock god. That's because he spent a weekend at the Georgia-based Camp Jam EXP - a real life "School of Rock" - where amateur adult musicians can play with professional musicians. Head banging is optional.

"It was like a mini-Woodstock."

Instructors for the weekend sessions include Liberty DeVitto (drummer for Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks), Jeff Carlisi (guitarist in 38 Special), and Ed King (former guitarist for Lynyrd Skynyrd).

"It gave me a reason to take my guitar out of mothballs," says Zimmerman. "The instructors really motivated us to play and work together, and if you were doing something that was incorrect - playing a wrong bass line - Ed King would say, 'Hey, this is how it's done,'" says Zimmerman. "I mean, that's pretty incredible to have these guys showing you how to do it. Then we all got to perform at the end of the weekend, and it was like a mini-Woodstock."

When given the chance, grown-ups from coast to coast are jumping at the chance to indulge their childhood dreams of rock stardom. In Oregon, the Girls Rock Camp is really just open to girls, but once a year, its doors open up to grown women who can sample all the camp has to offer - everything from voice lessons to songwriting to learning how to promote your band. At the Institute for Musical Arts in Massachusetts, participants can learn to jam on any instrument they like, even the viola or cello.

But back in Atlanta, the biggest payoff of all this wasn't the fact that he got to jam with stars, says Zimmerman - rather, it was for whom he got to jam.

"It was incredible to stand there singing 'Lucille' like I did 20 years ago and be able to do it while watching my 10-year-old son watching me," he says. "He was so blown away watching me that he asked for a guitar for his birthday, and now I'm giving him lessons. To me, that's amazing."

Posted on February 20, 2006