Worked With:
- Born: January 07, 1946, New York, NY
- Genres: Rock
- Instrument: Producer
Biography
Founder, editor and publisher of Rolling Stone magazine, Jann Wenner has exerted a significant influence upon rock journalism, for both good and bad, since the '60s. In its early days, Rolling Stone was the first widely distributed American publication to give serious coverage to rock music and the counterculture. Wenner was directly involved in its editorial focus, often as a reporter or interviewer; some of these interviews appeared in book form. Wenner's involvement in the magazine's music coverage declined after the early '70s, and as the publication became increasingly mainstream and commercially successful -- to the point of becoming one of America's most widely circulated periodicals -- its stock dropped within the counterculture from which it had emerged. After attending the University of California at Berkeley, Wenner started Rolling Stone in San Francisco in 1967, with the help of veteran music journalist Ralph Gleason and funding from several relatives. Much smaller than it is now, and more akin to a newspaper in its early design, Rolling Stone was nevertheless a big step forward for rock journalism in the U.S. in the late '60s. Previously, coverage had been limited to some press in the daily papers, often by writers with little knowledge of or empathy with the music and its social milieu, or small publications with very small circulation. Rolling Stone was available nationally, and immediately supported by the growing audience for rock, particularly its more ambitious and album-oriented forms. It was a place for solid pieces on the biggest credible stars, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, on down to emerging underground cult artists like Captain Beefheart. There was also space given to issues affecting the counterculture of the period, although at first music coverage was very much dominant. Rolling Stone was also appreciated by musicians, who had a forum in which they could talk at length about their art and other topics, without being subject to the superficiality or condescension of more mainstream periodicals. Straight away the magazine landed Q&As with many of the top rock musicians of the late '60s, which are still important source material for those learning about or researching the sounds of the era. Rolling Stone also helped launch the careers of many noted rock writers, including Greil Marcus, Ed Ward, John Morthland, Robert Greenfield and Ben Fong-Torres. The magazine's focus was tilted toward California and British rock at the outset, particularly London and San Francisco, understandable given the magazine's San Francisco base and the wide influence of San Francisco rock as it peaked in sales and influence in the late '60s.Wenner himself conducted many of the magazine's major interviews in its early years, including lengthy sessions with Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan and Phil Spector. (These were reprinted, along with pieces by other writers, in the book anthology The Rolling Interviews Vol. 1.) He also frequently editorialized about things elsewhere in the magazine. Once he stated that "a five hour private meeting between John Lennon and Richard Nixon would be a more significant summit than any Geneva Summit Conference between the U.S.A. and Russia." As it was clear he admired Lennon, it is not a surprise that the most famous interview Wenner did was an extensive interrogation of the ex-Beatle and Yoko Ono, shortly after the Beatles had broken up. Lennon and Ono had already given Rolling Stone a blessing of sorts by posing nude for its first anniversary issue in late 1968. In late 1970, Rolling Stone was financially troubled, to the point that many worried about its survival. This was when Wenner's mammoth Lennon interview appeared, and was part of the reason that Rolling Stone was able to weather the storm, as the subsequent two issues in which the interview was printed sold out. Apart from its boost to the magazine's fortunes, however, the Lennon interview remains one of the most important ever done with a popular musician. It documented the Beatles' career and split with painstakingly emotional, at times excruciating detail, and served as a major (and controversial) point of exorcism for Lennon himself in his coming to terms with the '60s, the Beatles and particularly his ruptured relationship with Paul McCartney. Whatever one thinks about Wenner and Rolling Stone, he deserves considerable credit for eliciting some of the most candid and revealing comments ever uttered by a rock star, in this case one of the biggest rock stars. His interviewing talent is also present in his sessions with others, like Mick Jagger, although he would rarely utilize it in later years, when his interest in contemporary music had radically decreased. The Lennon interview was published in book form, as Lennon Remembers, by Rolling Stone's Straight Arrow imprint. This caused a lot of friction with Lennon, who had granted the interview on the understanding that Wenner would not publish it in book form. As a result, Apple Corp. stopped advertising in Rolling Stone for almost a year.
As the '70s progressed, Rolling Stone devoted more attention to cultural and political stories, continuing to keep the focus of the magazine on contemporary music. Wenner himself, however, was less involved in the magazine as a writer, and indeed not too interested in keeping up with changing music trends, even as the magazine continued to document these. The magazine became slicker and more mainstream, and in general its move from San Francisco to New York in 1976 signified the point at which it became less a music/counterculture publication than a general interest one. It continued to employ and publish leading rock writers -- not only ones which had written for them in San Francisco, but also additions such as Dave Marsh, Charles Young and Timothy White. Throughout the '80s and '90s, however, it gave more and more space to fashion, film celebrity, and college lifestyle articles, to the point where it was not wholly accurate to call it a music periodical. It outraged some of its original constituency with a controversial "Perception/Reality" spread in the mid '80s that strove to convince advertisers that Rolling Stone readers were not hippies, but conservative yuppies (a reality that was becoming increasingly true). Reviews and articles in Rolling Stone were still important media exposure for artists, but not nearly as credible or influential as they had been in the '60s and '70s. Wenner himself is known as a tempestuous man to work for, and the magazine's editorial integrity was called into question in the '90s when respected writer Jim Derogatis was fired. Wenner had nixed his negative review of a Hootie & the Blowfish album, and let Derogatis go after the journalist told the press that his boss liked any record that sold millions and millions of copies, as Hootie's did. In the last part of the 20th century, Wenner diversified into other business interests besides Rolling Stone, including magazines that had nothing to do with music. He has also made relatively little-noticed forays into other media. He produced Boz Scaggs' American debut album in 1969. In late 1979 he played guitar with the Rolling Stone staff band, the Dry Heaves, which also included Kurt Loder on guitar, Timothy White on drums, Jon Pareles on keyboards and Charles Young on bass. No records emerged, perhaps thankfully, but Wenner took the project seriously enough to rehearse them several hours a day in preparation for the staff Christmas party. He had a major acting role in the 1985 film Perfect, starring John Travolta; both the film and his performance were poorly received. The best place to read about Wenner and Rolling Stone is Robert Draper's book Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History, which covers Wenner's life, and the magazine's evolution, until the late '80s. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
