Thirty-one air guitar solos

Monday was the last full day for my kids this school year and, as you would expect, there wasn't much schooling going on. In fact, my older daughter Marina organized an air guitar contest for her class, and asked me to put together a CD of appropriate heavy-shredding music that they could wail away to. When I mentioned it online, some of my friends asked for the list.

Here it is. I didn't put the whole songs on CD. Instead I excerpted just the appropriate guitar solos, or edited down a shorter section. They're listed in order from shortest to longest solos:

1. Takin' Care of Business - Bachman Turner Overdrive (Randy Bachman)
2. Get a Leg Up - John Mellencamp (David Grissom)
3. All Day and All of the Night - The Kinks (Dave Davies)
4. You Really Got Me - The Kinks (Dave Davies)
5. You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC (Angus Young)
6. Beat It - Michael Jackson (Eddie Van Halen)
7. Even Flow - Pearl Jam (Mike McCready)
8. Are You Gonna Go My Way? - Lenny Kravitz (Craig Ross)
9. Hard To Handle - The Black Crowes (Rich Robinson)
10. Heartbreaker - Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page)
11. Peelin' Taters - Junior Brown
12. Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes (Jack White)
13. Back in Black - AC/DC (Angus Young)
14. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana (Kurt Cobain)
15. New Year's Day - U2 (The Edge)
16. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page)
17. Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits (Mark Knopfler)
18. Scuttle Buttin' - Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
19. Oye Como Va - Santana (Carlos Santana)
20. Oh Well - Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green)
21. La Grange - ZZ Top (Billy Gibbons)
22. Mississippi Queen - Mountain (Leslie West)
23. Crossroads - Cream (Eric Clapton)
24. All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
25. Time - Pink Floyd (David Gilmour)
26. Sugarfoot Rag - Junior Brown
27. My Sharona - The Knack (Berton Averre)
28. Eruption - Van Halen (Eddie Van Halen)
29. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen (Brian May)
30. Blues Jam - Greg Koch
31. Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd (Allen Collins)

I've listed the guitarist in parentheses. Notice that all but two of these tracks were recorded before any of the kids in her class was born. Nevertheless, they know many of them from "Rock Band," "Guitar Hero," and retro video shows on TV.

Sure, there are some famous solos missing, from the likes of Guns 'n' Roses, Metallica, Aerosmith, and the like, but I think it's a pretty decent list anyway. And of course I included "Free Bird" last.