Shumway's Rock Star is an intriguing and ambitious study on the history of stardom, which aims to ‘explain what the personas of seven rock icons meant to the culture’ (p. xiii) and how these personas, embodying many cultural contradictions, have been constructed and re-formed in different historical contexts. As the preceding quote suggests, the book does not seek to present a comprehensive history of rock stardom but focuses on a selection of artists, through whom the interrelationship between stardom and society is studied. The selection itself is fairly diverse, comprising Elvis, James Brown, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen. The multiple case approach forms a fertile ground for this kind of study but it will also surely raise questions among the readers. As Shumway himself notes, ‘[e]very reader will doubtless think of many stars who could have been represented here’ (p. 19), and some of them may also ‘object that some of the stars’ in question ‘didn't perform rock & roll’ (p. 20).
Shumway justifies his choice of artists by stating that each of them ‘illustrates a different aspect of the cultural impact of rock & roll and of the new form of stardom’ (p. xiv). He also explains that he ‘chose artists of whom [he has] long been a fan, since, if stardom is inherently a relationship with fans, then it would be hard to write about stars with whom one did not have such a relationship’ (p. 19). Although the idea of the need for the researcher himself to be a fan of the stars he is studying could be challenged, this statement helps the reader to further understand the selection of artists. It also underlines the reciprocal construction of stardom in relation to the fan audience, an important premise for Shumway's study. As for the question of whether the selected artists represent rock music or not, Shumway explains that he understands rock & roll as a ‘cultural practice’ rather than a particular type of music (p. 20) – an approach that is well justified when studying rock stardom as a cultural phenomenon, not only a position within a specific genre.
The research frame Shumway adopts through these choices is a remarkable strength of the study. Focusing on artists representing different positions in the field of popular music allows the author to concentrate on the most interesting and focal changes in rock stardom, as well as on the relationship between the stars and the changing (primarily American) society. Secondly, by choosing some of the less obvious stars, Shumway succeeds in shaking the canon of rock history in a refreshing way, showing, for example, the essential roles of James Brown and Joni Mitchell in constructing rock stardom as we now know it. Thirdly, by focusing on relatively long-lived artists, Shumway is able to study the evolution of star personas as the artists' careers go on. For him, this was also an important reason for excluding stars like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison from the study.
The book consists of eight chapters and a conclusion. In the first chapter, Shumway defines star as a concept, distinguishing it from celebrity and fame, and discusses the historical background of rock stardom particularly in relation to movie culture. Another fruitful point of reference could have been the nineteenth century music stars, such as Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, who gained international fame and raised a large fan boom, referred to as ‘Lind Mania’, in America. The next chapters focus on the selected artists, pointing out interesting turning points in rock stardom and linking them to historical changes in gender norms and sexuality, ethnic and generational relations, class dynamics, youth culture, and politics.
Shumway's analysis of cultural products and practices moulding rock stars' public images is rich and sharp-eyed throughout the chapters, particularly when it comes to songs, albums and performance. It is also noteworthy that, while each of the chapters focuses on one of the seven artists, the comparative perspective – including many artists excluded from the case selection – is widely employed in the analysis. At some points, however, it would have been interesting to see even more extensive, explicit and in-depth analysis of the historical primary sources related to media representation and, particularly, audience reception as aspects of the construction of a star persona. The analysis could also have benefitted from a more active dialogue with recent academic research on stardom and popular music history.
In the concluding chapter, Shumway moves forward from the historical perspective and takes a look at the role of rock stardom in today's fragmented and digitised music culture. Shumway suggests that the era of traditional rock stars has ended in the sense that the cultural centrality and meaning of (single) rock stars has decreased fundamentally. It is, indeed, hard to think of any recent rock artist with a cultural influence and reach equal to, say, Elvis or the Rolling Stones. Another question is, of course, to what extent this notion describes music cultures outside the Western world, where many societies are only currently going through the sociocultural changes that laid ground for the rise of rock stardom in the post-war West.
In sum, Shumway's Rock Star offers the reader a captivating and thought-provoking – sometimes even ‘provocative’, as described by Anthony DeCurtis in his foreword (p. xi) – journey into the rock culture of the post-war era. It is written in a clear and compact yet analytic manner, which makes it interesting and recommendable reading for both scholars and music fans. The book is also a good example of successful application of the perspectives of social and cultural history to the study of stardom and popular music – not only analysing the past forms of music culture but also linking them to their sociocultural contexts and, thus, opening interesting views to much larger changes in the society.
