Dual Personalities?

First off, as a side note, I'd like to mention that I finally recieved my copy of Ableton Live, so I will start playing around with music production and recording soon, and I'm going home this weekend and I hope to return on sunday with a guitar.

Who are musicians?  I don't mean the band or the performer, but who are they really?  I've had the privilege of knowing many musicians, some world wide famous others just locals who love to play, but they all have two personalities; the person they are on stage and they person they are in normal life.  I've always been interested in how the two are similar and different, and how they live together.

As far as I can tell, the men and women of music off stage are pretty normal.  They usually have some strange habits-like locking themselves in their practice rooms for hours on end, or listening to pieces of music they hope to play on repeat endlessly so that if/when they do play it, they already know it-and can occasionally be a bit awkward in social situations.  Sometimes the awkwardness is due to the fact that everyone wants to be their friend, but sometimes it is just due to them being a bit awkward.  There are two examples in my life that I feel demonstrate this very well.

First, there is my friend from back home, Simon*.  Simon has been the all-state jazz first trombonist since he was in 5th grade.  He had devoted his entire life to music.  When he's not playing, his headphones are in his ears, or he has his head deep in a music theory book.  The only time he isn't actively engaging in music is when he is sleeping.  He prefers to stay in the background and focus on his music, rather then grab the spotlight.  When he is on stage, however, he is a different person entirely.  When he stands up for his solo, you know a few things:  1. this concert is about to get a lot better. 2. the energy in the place was just cranked a few notches...or a lot of notches, and 3. Simon is literally about to blow your mind.  The things he can achieve on (literally) a piece of bent plumbing are incredible.  He's a class-A performer, who engages, reads, and entertains the crowd, and he lives up to the extremely high standard he sets for himself.  Simon lives for his music, and his ability is a gift both to him and to all those who experience his performance, yet unless he is performing, he stays in the background and lets things happen as they will.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have James Taylor.  I've grown up listening to James Taylor my entire life, but I had no idea of how big he was until he decided to send his kids to the same school I attended.  At one of the first school functions that year, all of the teachers were extremely excited about something, but-due to both a request by James and by common courtsey-they weren't acting on it.  As time went on, and we all adjusted to James being around, it became very clear that this was someone looking for a normal life outside of his profession. James loves his job, but when he's not performing or on tour, he doesn't want to be swamped with followers asking for autographs and pictures; he wants to enjoy time with his kids and his close friends.  While I was never extremely close with him, I did have the opportunity to hang out with James while his kids played after school and I waited for my mother to pack up her room for the day (she teaches at the school).   I actually got to baby sit the kids for a few hours one day when their parents were at school conferences, something I later learned was apparently much bigger deal then just helping a friend out.  Because this was my first interaction with a rock star, I figured it was always this way, but I was wrong.  A few years later, my mother and I were invited to participate in a shoot that was part of James' new movie One Man Band.  I figured that it wasn't that big of a deal, but when we arrived at the theater, there were people lined up from the parking lot to the stage door waiting to see James, get a picture, or maybe an autograph.  Even more shocking to me was that he was completely willing to do so (I'm not saying James isn't nice, just that the James I knew never held himself on a different level then myself, but here he was god to these fans.)  It struck me that, even though this was clearly the same man, this was also a completely different person.
I never got the opportunity to ask him about this topic, but when we were discussing in class how people can get so involved in their online selves that they prefer them to their real selves, I couldn't help but wonder if it was the same with musicians, and-more importantly-if James preferred to be James my friend, or James Taylor the rock star.

*Name changed for safety reasons.