Letter to Malcolm Gladwell: British Outliers and Rock and Roll Part 1

This blog is the first part of a letter I sent several years ago to author Malcolm Gladwell. I had read his books Outliers and The Tipping Point, and Outliers gave me the framework to flush out questions I'd had for years about rock music's origins and why many people in their 40's and 50's were still following their favorite rock bands around for decades. The researcher in me loved finding information that helped answer my questions, and there is a spiritual component to my discoveries.    

Dear Mr. Gladwell,

Initially, posts from music industry blogger Bob Lefsetz got me interested in Outliers, but the book itself awakened the dormant radio researcher within. Yes, eons ago, I was a radio research analyst who specialized in looking at demographic trends. Outliers was right up my alley. Your book made me think of a question I’d pondered during my research years: Why did the British excel in rock music when rock ‘n’ roll’s roots were based in America? 

While not an expert on music history, I am a music lover and excellent sleuth when the subject matter piques my interest. So I dusted off my research hat in an attempt to discover what influenced the most prominent rock bands of all time; The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd, (all English and most were part of the British Invasion) to become rock ‘n’ roll outliers. 

Your time is valuable and my analysis is thorough, so here are the distilled-down high points of the five primary themes that I believe provided the backdrop for the British rock musicians’ success:

1. The British Outliers (or BOs) were born within an 8 year span, and during a demographic trough
2. Immigration of blacks to England after WWII  highly influenced British music
3. Drum-based rock music imprints upon the psyche during teen years
4.  A decline of religion in England created a void of spiritual leaders
5.  The Brits unconsciously attempted to heal psychological trauma from WWII with music

I found your book a complete inspiration and have enjoyed putting the pieces of my discoveries together. Should you choose to read on and find my analysis of interest, I’d welcome any feedback. Here we go. 

They Say It’s Your Birthday...

The members of the five bands mentioned above were all born between 1940 and 1948, except Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones (1936). Interestingly, the English birth rate in 1946-1948 was the lowest since 1921 (due to WWII), and by 1950, it was at its nadir since 1700. Yet 39% of the BOs were born between 1946-1948.  These Brits followed a similar trend as your post-depression Jewish lawyers and were born into a demographic trough. The trough becomes a factor two decades later, when the small teenage British population pales in comparison to American baby boomers, who ultimately fuel the rock craze. 

As far as musical talent was concerned, I found no child prodigies in the group. Some of the BOs had musical training at an early age, but most began playing an instrument as teenagers.  The desire to pick up a guitar or bang a drum stemmed from the dramatic changes in the English music scene during the late 1950s. 

Black Immigration and Skiffle

The BOs came from all over England: London, Liverpool, Acton, Worcestershire, Cambridge etc. They did not all hail from the same county like Jewish Queens lawyer’s had because the growth of television in the 1950s brought American rock ‘n’ roll to small and large British cities alike. Young English teens discovered African-American music, especially the blues, and black American performers Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, B.B. King, and Elmore James are among those cited as BO influences.  Elvis also popularized black music on both sides of the Atlantic, but there was another important change which brought this style of music to England. 

I was not aware that due to post WWII labor shortages in the 1950s, England’s black population increased more than tenfold. Immigrants from the British West Indies and Africa came to the UK for work, but they also brought along Jazz, calypso and other black influenced genres which were recorded and performed throughout England. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were captivated by African-American music, and came of age in cities with large immigrant populations: Liverpool and London.

Numerous BOs noted skiffle, a type of folk music with jazz, blues, and country, as a major influence. Skiffle used homemade or improvised instruments such as the washboard, as well as more conventional instruments including the acoustic guitar and banjo. It was popular in the United States between the 1920s and 1940s, then pretty much died out, but resurfaced in Great Britain in the late 1950s. Skiffle became the British equivalent of rockabilly, with loud and fast music that offered a direct communication between the band and the audience.

The BOs were exposed to a variety of music, and this certainly helped shape their musical preferences. However, as you illustrated in Outliers, timing is everything. Since the BOs were born between 1940-1948, most were teens in the late 1950s when black music was flourishing. This put the Brits smack dab in the middle of what I call a musical imprinting window.     

Imprinting and music

When I was a radio research analyst in the 1980s, research gurus claimed the music we prefer between the ages of 15-20 is most likely the music we will listen to for the rest of our lives. Radio format averages show how musical formats age with their listeners: for example, the median age of a classic rock listener in 1990 was 29 yrs; in 2006, it was 41. However, the research sages had no idea why this phenomenon occurred.  I always wondered why many people, myself included, seem to be drawn to the same music decades after our high school years.  We mature in many ways as we age, but frequently our musical preferences get “stuck” in late adolescence. 

In 2003, I conducted an Internet survey among rock music fans of all ages asking numerous questions regarding how music has impacted their life. Though a small sample base of 150 respondents, the median age a person became a fan of their favorite band was 15.8 yrs…just as the research gurus claimed. After years of observations, I’ve concluded that for many people there is a psychological/physiological based musical imprinting window which opens when we’re about 15, and closes by our early 20s. 

Imprinting is a fascinating innate process that occurs in certain animals. Austrian naturalist Konrad Lorenz noticed how shortly after hatching, there is a window of time when baby ducklings regard a moving animal nearest to them as “Mom.” Didn’t matter if it was a pig or a red boot worn by Lorenz, whatever primary object moved during the imprinting window (also known as phase-sensitive learning), the ducks followed into adulthood.

Imprinting is instinctual. By providing a safe guardian to closely follow, it helps to ensure a young animal’s survival.  Humans appear to have a language “imprinting window” during infancy and early childhood which is why we pick up speech patterns and second languages more easily as children.  It seems there might be an evolutionary reason for musical imprinting as well. I believe it stems from the oldest instrument on earth: the drum.

Ancient drums have been discovered in almost every part of the world, and for thousands of years, the drum was a primary tool to induce trance states for the tribal shaman. Percussion was almost universally used during rituals of transition such as birth, puberty, marriage, and death, when the spirit world is called upon for guidance. Yet these were not European rituals. There was no drumming (banned by the church for centuries because it was the instrument of the devil) or dancing until recent times during religious ceremonies.   

Decline of Religion

This posed a dilemma for 20^th century BOs whose upbringing lacked such rituals. Not only was there no tribal shaman to help make the transition into adulthood, there were fewer priests because the Second World War dramatically accelerated the decline of Christianity in England. The effect of aerial bombardment, which damaged or destroyed 15,000 ecclesiastical buildings in Britain, dealt a serious blow to religious observance.  Whereas an American religious upsurge that followed World War II continued into the 1950s, religion in Britain suffered an immense decline. 

One thing became clear to me. The BOs were brought up in an economically struggling post WWII environment, and Britain had to rebuild itself after having been ravaged by war. Growing up in lack gave the BOs a strong desire for success, and rock music offered a ticket out of “the sick man of Europe.” But England wasn’t simply sick economically. The Brits were adversely impacted psychologically by the war as well. Being raised in a more secular society may have been the biggest influence on the BOs success because I believe they unconsciously filled the archetypal role of the shaman (aka high priest). Shamans not only took on a religious or spiritual role; they were also healers.