The Right to Rock Upheld by Cedar Grove-Based Foundation

The bass line of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" vibrates through a New Jersey classroom where music instruction had long been cut. The guitar lead to Led Zeppelin's "Rock & Roll" is energizing students where apathy and budget woes once prevailed. This drum beat of hope is reverberating from an office in Cedar Grove, and setting a tempo for new dreams in the schools of Newark, Irvington, Orange, Trenton, and Jersey City. 

Restoring and revitalizing music education in public schools is the mission of Little Kids Rock, a nationwide organization based in Cedar Grove that places volunteer music teachers in the classrooms of schools in New Jersey and across the country where music programs have been cut and fifty percent or more of the students are on a free or reduced price lunch program.

"Every kid has the right to rock" is the anthem of Little Kids Rock, and the volunteer teacher upholding that right just might be a famous musician. Carmine Appice from the band Vanilla Fudge, Ziggy Marley, Bonnie Rait, and guitarist Slash are just a few of the musical celebrities involved in the organization who have gone into classrooms to inspire students to not only play the songs of their music idols, but to create their own original compositions as well. 

On Thursday, Oct. 21, Little Kids Rock students from Jersey City and Orange took the stage at B.B. King's Blues Club and Grill in Manhattan to perform their original songs. They shared the bill of the Right to Rock Celebration benefit with the band Vanilla Fudge, American Idol Kris Allen, and former Yankee baseball player Bernie Williams, who is also a jazz guitarist. The benefit raised over $175,000, the proceeds allowing Little Kids Rock to continue its music classes and provide instruments for the students. 

The right to rock cannot be upheld without guitars, so guitars were auctioned off at the benefit event, raising $75,000 for Little Kids Rock. Famous musicians and other celebrities personally decorated and donated Fender guitars for the benefit. 

Metallica front man James Hetfield's guitar brought in the biggest auction take, going for $18,500. His guitar featured a cartoon of a yellow rocker oblivious to negative messages like "Can't you do anything?" and "not good enough" scrawled around him as he stayed positive while playing his music, his design reflecting the uplifting attitude that Little Kids Rock strives to inspire in its students. 

Stan Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man and many other Marvel Comics characters, designed a Spider-Man guitar with airbrush artist John Asarisi that netted $3,250 dollars. Comedian and Montclair resident Stephen Colbert's patriotic red, white, and blue guitar, complete with the familiar Colbert "C," auctioned for $2,600. 

Among the many musicians who decorated guitars for auction were Lou Reed, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, guitar great Joe Satriani, Karen O of the "Yeah Yeah Yeahs,"  Slash, Ziggy Marley, and Gene Simmons.

The idea for the guitar auction began when Gene Simmons visited a Los Angeles classroom for Little Kids Rock and aired the event on the Aug. 24 season finale of his reality television show "Gene Simmons Family Jewels." Little Kids Rock founder Dave Wish approached Simmons about decorating a guitar for auction, and Simmons and his son Nick obliged, adorning a Fender Standard Series Stratocaster with doodles in blue Sharpie pen.            

Dave Wish began Little Kids Rock in 1996 while teaching second Grade in the San Francisco Bay Area and was upset that the music program had been cut. So he brought his guitar into the classroom and started teaching students how to rock and roll after school. He persuaded friends to donate musical instruments and the program was born. Wish's efforts have reached far beyond where he started. The program now reaches over 85,000 students in over 23 cities across the country . 

In a video on the Little Kids Rock website, Wish describes his approach: "One teacher, one school, starting one class to reach one child to change one person's life at a time. And for me it doesn't get any better than that."

Keith Hejna, Little Kids Rock's Communication and Outreach Coordinator, shares the passion of Wish's musical mission. "It's a privilege to have so many people who understand that every kid has a right to rock."

Editor's Note: The tally of $175,000 raised is a preliminary total. Hejna says the total is an early count, and that details on the total amount raised are still coming to fruition.