Following better things
Grammar schools, religion and English rock music in the early 1970s
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.37496Keywords:
Progressive rock, grammar schools, secondary education, England and Wales, 1970sAbstract
Examination of the secondary schooling of successful English and Welsh rock musicians of the early 1970s indicates the significance of the grammar school. Nearly half of ‘progressive’ rock musicians had a grammar school education, but even among ‘classic’ rock musicians, grammar school-educated players were over-represented compared to the figures for the population as a whole. The impact of a grammar school education is then explored through an examination of the work of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull, indicating the Church of England ethos that dominated grammar schools of the period and which continued to have an influence on the form of progressive rock as a genre. Secondary education has been rather neglected as an important factor conditioning the nature of music but might help to explain band dynamics and the development of particular genres.
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Anderson, Ian. 1990. ‘Top Ten Tull Tunes’. UK tour programme. http://www.tullpress.com
Bailey, Peter. 1999. ‘Jazz at the Spirella: Coming of Age in Coventry in the 1950s’. In Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain 1945–1964, ed. Becky Conekin, Frank Mort and Chris Waters, 22–40. London: Rivers Oram Press.
Barton, Geoff. 2015. ‘Deep Purple’. Classic Rock 208: 32–43.
Bernstein, Basil. 1996. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity. London: Taylor & Francis.
BGS. 1959–68. The Blackpool Grammar School Magazine 1959–1968. Blackpool: Blackpool Grammar School.
Bloom, Jerry. 2006. Black Knight: Ritchie Blackmore. London: Omnibus.
Bracewell, Michael. 2008. Roxy: The Band That Invented an Era. London: Faber & Faber.
Branch, Andrew. 2012. ‘All the Young Dudes: Educational Capital, Masculinity and the Uses of Popular Music’. Popular Music 31/1: 25–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143011000444
Bruford, Bill. 2009. The Autobiography. London: Jawbone.
Chambers, Ian. 1985. Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17818-6
Clayson, Alan. 2006. Led Zeppelin: The Origin of the Species. New Malden: Chrome Dreams.
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Clerk, Carol. 2006. The Saga of Hawkwind. London: Omnibus.
Coe, Jonathan. 2001. The Rotters’ Club. London: Penguin.
Coleman, Ray. 1980. ‘Living in the Twilight World’. Melody Maker, 11 October.
Cornick, Glenn. 2007. ‘2007 Q&A with Tull’s First Bassist: Glen Cornick’. Jethro Tull Board. http://thejethrotullboard.proboards.com/thread/1978/2007-tulls-first-bassist-cornick
Cousins, Dave. 2014. Exorcising Ghosts: Strawbs and Other Lives. Deal: Witchwood.
Crockford’s. 1987. Crockford’s Clerical Directory. London: Church House Publishing.
Deep Purple.net. 2010. ‘Ian Paice’. http://www.deep-purple.net/tree/the-maze/deep-purple-the-maze.html
Easlea, Daryl. 2013. Without Frontiers: The Life and Music of Peter Gabriel. London: Omnibus.
Emerson, Keith. 2004. Pictures of an Exhibitionist. London: John Blake Publishing.
Fraser, Andy. 2014. ‘Andy Fraser’. http://www.andyfraser.com/andy.html (accessed 22 May 2014).
Freestone, Paul. 2012. Eccentric Man: A Biography and Discography of Tony (TS) McPhee. Oxford: Incompetent Publishing.
Frith, Simon, and Howard Horne. 1987. Art into Pop. London: Routledge.
Gillan, Ian, with David Cohen. 2016. Ian Gillan: The Autobiography of Deep Purple’s Singer. London: Music Press.
Guinness. 2005. British Hit Singles and Albums. London: Guinness World Records.
Hoggart, Richard. 1971. The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life, With Special Reference to Publications and Entertainments. London: Chatto & Windus.
Iommi, Tony. 2011. Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath. London: Simon & Schuster.
Lake, Greg. 2017. Lucky Man: The Autobiography. London: Constable.
Lambe, Stephen. 2013. Citizens of Hope and Glory: The Story of Progressive Rock. Stroud: Amberley.
Macan, Edward. 1997. Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195098884.001.0001
Manning, Toby. 2006. The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd. London: Rough Guides.
Martin, Bill. 1998. Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock 1968–1978. Chicago: Open Court.
McClean, Annie. 2008. ‘The Biography of a Sophisto-Rock Saxophonist’. http://www.johnhelliwell.com/biography.php
McGrath, James. 2014. ‘“Where You Once Belonged”: Class, Race and the Liverpool Roots of Lennon and McCartney’s Songs’. Popular Music History 9/1: 11–31. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v9i1.27616
McIver, Joel. 2006. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. London: Omnibus.
Mitchell, B. 1988. British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mutch, Alistair. 2017. ‘Bernstein, Basil’. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Social Theory, ed. B. Turner. Chichester: John Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118430873.est0573
Negus, Keith. 1996. Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.
Nollen, Scott. 2002. Jethro Tull: A History of the Band, 1968–2001. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
Powell, Andy, with Colin Harper. 2015. Eyes Wide Open: True Tales of a Wishbone Ash Warrior. London: Jawbone Press.
Rees, Paul. 2014. Robert Plant: A Life. London: HarperCollins.
Robins, David. 2011 [1984]. We Hate Humans. Preston: Milo.
Sandbrook, Dominic. 2007. White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties. London: Abacus.
Stein, Daniel, and Martin Butler. 2015. ‘Musical Autobiographies: An Introduction’. Popular Music and Society 38/2: 115–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2014.994324
Stewart, Rod. 2012. Rod: The Autobiography. London: Century.
Stump, Paul. 1998. Unknown Pleasures: A Cultural Biography of Roxy Music. London: Quartet.
—2010. The Music’s All That Matters. Chelmsford: Harbour.
Turner, Martin. 2012. No Easy Road: My Life and Times with Wishbone Ash and Beyond. N.p.: Dirty Dog Books.
Walker, Greg. 2008. ‘Off Piste: Grand Masters of Vinyl’. THE, 11 September. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/off-piste/off-piste-grand-masters-of-vinyl/403455.article
Wikipedia. 2015. ‘Chris Squire’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Squire
Willis, Paul. 1977. Learning to Labour. London: Saxon House.
Yorke, Ritchie. 1999. Led Zeppelin: The Definitive Biography. London: Virgin.
Published
2019-12-16
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Mutch, A. (2019). Following better things: Grammar schools, religion and English rock music in the early 1970s. Popular Music History, 11(3), 228-251. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.37496
