I never read Rolling Stone - rather listen to music than read about it & didn't care about politics. Also, concert & LP reviews made me as a high school/college kid feel completely out of where everything was happening. Definitely had a West Coast vibe. Still, I liked Clapton's & Leavell's books so thought I'd try this. The prologue is good - encapsulates what rock meant & probably a lot of us can relate. Haven't got to Duane or ABB yet...
My subscription lapsed ... 20 years or so ago. Even at that point, Rolling Stone had become something more akin to GQ with music reviews. They seemed to be developing an obsession with artists like Lady Gaga and a lot of hip-hop stuff. Yeah, I know - I'm old. Speaking from an eco-minded hippy perspective, they'd already changed from the more landfill-friendly newsprint (paper) to the shiny, glossy stuff. I'll credit them with occasionally delivering some solid news journalism: when my old hometown of Birmingham, AL went through it's water/sewer system fiasco (a Howitzer cannon for a fly-swatter), RS delivered the most comprehensible coverage of any other media. I'm just not sure that I am interested enough in Jan's life to spend hours reading about it.
I'm about 1/3 of the way through & it's a bio of the magazine more than him - covering whatever he wanted. He mentions growing up in an affluent family & was a journalism major at Berkeley when the 1960s hit big time. It's all west coast & what's amazing is how young everyone was - 21 & starting record labels, being promoters, & the magazine as well as being writers for national newspapers. Some of the writers were still in college. The guy covering R&B (which Wenner hadn't heard of & went w/it just because they were trying to be THE music mag) was a sophomore at Brandeis.
Just read the story of Boz Scaggs/Duane recording Somebody Loan Me a Dime. Wenner produced (I don't think he'd done that before) & he kept recording after Duane took off for about 13 minutes (unheard of at the time).
@cyclone88 Rolling Stone was pretty much the Bible for the counterculture in its early days. Still a viable read - if your Dentist is hip enough to have a copy in the lobby. 😉 Your mention of the Duane/Boz story intrigues me to the point where I'll likely pick up a copy.
I was a big fan of Rolling Stone in the 70's and had a subscription until Wenner sold the rag as the new owner jacked up the price of a subscription.
When Wenner still owned it you could get a yearly subscription for less that a dollar an issue so I would always resubscribe as there were always good political writers, like Hunter Thompson and Matt Taibbi, and occasionally Musician and band interviews/ articles that would catch my interest.
Once Wenner sold the magazine the new owners turned it into a glossy publication aimed at millennials and jacked up the subscription price to $90 a year so I said no thanks..
I get it as old hippy music fans like me are no longer the core audience so it makes sense they would update the format and content to target their core audience.
There is a a recent Wenner biography by Joe Hagan I read that I thought was well written if you are interested in Wenner and the history of Rolling Stones magazine. Used copies of the hard cover can be had pretty cheap on Amazon.
Would be interesting to compare Wenner's auto biography to Hagan's biography.
Wenner's book is being marketed as the REAL story as he wants to set the record straight (no pun intended) re Hagan's book. In general, I prefer auto-bios to bios because I like to read 1st person.
I'm way too early in the book to know about a sale (he claims he would never do that), but then he goes on to say in the prologue that it now under the management of one of his sons.
He talks about free subscriptions and free roach clips w/every subscription in the early years. I was kind of shocked when he talked about concert ticket prices for larger venues being $5. He claims Altamont was triggered by resistance to the Stones charging $7.50 -$12 (VIP) so they did it for free. Had to laugh at the recent pushback against Springsteen charging up to $4,000 but this was the late 1960s.
I read a lot of music related books and there are advantages and disadvantages to both autobiographies and biographies IMHO. You do get info from the horses mouth with an autobiography but it also can be filtered by the author as they may not want to share some of the more dark stories about their lives that a third party biography author might dig up.
On the other hand the accuracy of a third party biography can be a concern but may provide details on subjects the person the book is about would not be willing to share.
I read both types and there are good and not so interesting books in both cases. A good example for me of an autobiography I was disappointed in was Eric Clapton's. While he does dig into his dark past I found it too much of a soul cleansing exercise about his demons and too lacking in the musical aspect of his legendary career for me.
One of my favorite third person Biographies is Galadrielle's book about her father. She did an amazing job of balancing the light and the dark about Duane while also injecting her personal longing to really get to know the father she never experienced due to his untimely death. I am just finishing up reading it for the third time and find new nuggets of info about Duane and the ABB extended family every time I read it. She did not sugar coat the demons Duane had while also pointing out his musical brilliance and interpersonal humanity.
Back to Wenner, he did sell control of Rolling Stone magazine which is now wholly owned by Penske Media Corporation since 2019.
After reading Hagan's book I may have to get Wenner's autobiography to compare notes.
I'm leaving the task of comparing the 2 books to you.
For actors & musicians, I like to read 1st person. I don't really care how accurate it is - more the general story of how they got from Hometown to Stardom, which is sometimes inspirational.
If you haven't checked out the print edition of Rolling Stone recently, prepare
to be shocked. It is pretty much all rap, hip-hop, K-POP, Latina and LGBTQ now.
The chances of Springsteen, McCartney or Mick and Keith being on the cover these
days is zilch.
The fans of those legacy bands are no longer the target audience as most of the youth today don't listen to our music. It is targeted to Millenials now I think.
Used to be amazing music/ political rag back in the late 60's and even into the 80's but tastes change and time marches on.
Wenner addresses how much the internet changed the magazine - in content & target audience. The appetite for long political or issues pieces left about 25 years ago (as it did in other serious magazines). Rap was covered starting earlier than that & LGBT issues became more prominent when Wenner himself finally came out & had 3 children w/his partner (while remaining married to his wife). He mentions he had no clue who the musical artists were in RS or his main source of income US magazine by the time he retired. He'd dabbled in pop going back to David Cassidy. I came away wondering why he bothered to keep publishing RS - it had veered so far from its original premise.
