Rock the vote

By Jonathan Duffy
BBC News Online Magazine

Perfect pitch: Senator John Kerry

Are you a politician who wants to show everyone that you're a normal kind of fellow who isn't obsessed with politics? Get jamming.

In his day, Elvis was the King. But ever since the Memphis monarch's premature dethronement, the relation between pop star and head of state has been inverted.

These days you're more likely to see leaders harbouring ambitions to be pop performers than the other way round.

The newest Kid on the Block is Democratic White House wannabe John Kerry, who has been pictured clutching a classical guitar en flight to Washington DC.

Got the blues in me: Howard 'Slowhand' Dean

It turns out Kerry, whose polymath credentials are so vast they border on parody, used to play bass in a school band called the Electras.

Recently he has veered into more erudite musical territory by taking up the classical guitar, although in September he was pictured playing a semi-acoustic jazz guitar, thereby striking just the right balance between ripened authority and languid cool.

Not to be outdone, Kerry's one-time rival for the Democratic ticket, Howard Dean, picked up an acoustic six-string to knock out a rendition of Comeback Baby shortly after losing his first caucus.

Men of power have always dallied with musicianship. King Henry VIII is rumoured to have composed one of the most enduring English folk songs, Greensleeves.

Axeman Arnie on the campaign trail

Italy's Benito Mussolini played the violin and Jan Paderewski was a virtuoso concert pianist before becoming Polish prime minister in 1919.

US president Harry Truman was also an accomplished pianist and Richard Nixon took to the old Joanna at the White House wedding of his daughter Julie.

Such musical forays tended to remain behind the closed doors of power. But all that changed in 1992 when US presidential challenger Bill Clinton kicked out a few bars on his saxophone on primetime TV.

In an instant Clinton blew away the staidness that stalks a presidential race. Suddenly, politicians could be cool - albeit in that embarrassing dad-dancing-at-a-party way.

Silvio Berlusconi wrote teh lyrics and sang on all 14 tracks

Cue Tony Blair five years later: Britain's first ever rockin' prime minister. Mr Blair famously once played guitar with some shaggy haired university pals in a group called Ugly Rumours.

These days he still enjoys a strum, and has even been given a guitar by Canadian rocker Bryan Adams, who may have been less impressed by the trombone-playing antics of his own leader, Jean Chretien.

The bug is clearly catching. In Japan, prime minister Junichiro Koizumi has released an album of his favourite Elvis songs and duetted live with Tom Cruise on an Elvis number.

Lately, Italians have been treated to an album of 14 songs by their PM Silvio Berlusconi, himself a former cruise ship crooner.

But it's a dangerous game they're playing, says Andrew Male, editor of music magazine Mojo.

Kofi Annan drumming home the peace message

"The essence of rock and roll is whether you believe it. When you go and see a band do you believe in them? So if politicians can pull it off, as Clinton seemed to do, then it's a very powerful campaigning tool," says Male.

However, he was not convinced.

"The sax is probably the most cheesy, misguided choice of middle aged men who want to appear cool, closely followed by the acoustic guitar. It's a cool instrument played mostly by uncool people.

"I'm much more comfortable with the likes of Berlusconi or Koizumi. They're much more in the happy karaoke mode, rather than trying to be something they're not."