Did Eric Clapton experience “impostor syndrome” years before it even had a name?
I was listening to American Top 40 from May 13, 1978, when Casey Kasem’s fill-in host shared a fascinating story about Eric Clapton.
Back in January 1973, Clapton kept a packed audience at London’s Rainbow Theatre waiting 45 minutes past showtime.
Why? His nerves got the best of him.
According to the broadcast:
“In show business, it’s a psychological fact of life that the bigger a star becomes, the more insecure he gets…. It’s as though the individual is thinking, ‘How can I possibly be as talented as people are telling me I am? It just can’t be true.’”
The host then shared this quote from Clapton:
“I’m thought of as a lead guitarist, and that’s not me. I’m just an unskilled laborer musician who finds it difficult to get in tune, let alone play lead guitar solos.”
The story continued:
“Once in 1973 at the famous Rainbow in London, a packed house was waiting to hear Clapton play, and they had to wait 45 minutes past showtime while Eric sat outside in his car, too uptight and too insecure about being able to deliver. Finally, he got his head together, went into the club, walked out on stage to a standing ovation, and proceeded to bring the house down with his brilliant playing. When he finished, the audience brought him back for four encores.”
Of course, there’s more to the story.
According to accounts from the time, Pete Townshend and others organized the concert to help bring Clapton back into the public eye and encourage him to overcome his drug addiction. So this wasn’t simply insecurity or what we now call impostor syndrome.
Still, it’s fascinating.
The term “impostor phenomenon” was only coined in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in their paper, “The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women.”
Yet years earlier, one of the greatest guitarists in history was sitting in his car, wondering if he was good enough.
The video contains the audio from the American Top 40 broadcast if you are interested in listening…