Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Rolling Stone Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:23:03 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE \SS (WS) \HD Rolling Stone \SH Jann Wenner's countercultural bible is more mainstream than radical in its 25th year \BY George Varga \CR COPLEY NEWS SERVICE \DT NEW YORK NEW YORK - Jann Wenner strides into his plush, mid-Manhattan office looking very much like a sweet-toothed youngster just given free run of his favorite candy store. With barely contained glee, the 46-year-old publisher takes a seat at the large glass table and produces the source of his enthusiasm. Is it an advance copy of the third and final 25th anniversary issue of Rolling Stone magazine? Or the new issue of Us, the entertainment magazine that Mr. Wenner bought in 1985 and sank a reported $20 million into before seeing any profits? Or the newest issue of Men's Journal, the thick, glossy sports, travel and adventure magazine that he launched last spring? Another photo of Bill Clinton wearing a sweatshirt with the Rolling Stone logo emblazoned on it? Not this time. On this late afternoon in mid-October, the Rolling Stone-endorsed boomer candidate is not yet president-elect. And Jann Wenner's excitement has a musical source far nearer and dearer to his heart. "Look at this," he says, pointing to five laminated backstage passes for that evening's all-star Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. "This one will get you backstage. This one will get you to the VIP lounge for dinner. And this one," says Mr. Wenner, casually holding up a performer's pass that ensures unlimited access, "will get you everywhere. " With a self-satisfied grin, he turns to a visiting reporter who also is in town to cover the Dylan tribute, now less than three hours away. "So stick around, young man," Mr. Wenner tells the reporter, "and someday this could all be yours." Cocky? Without a doubt. Flamboyant? Ditto. Pure Wenner? Absolutely. It's not surprising that Jann Wenner - a nonmusician who has chronicled rock 'n' roll longer and with far greater success than any other American periodical publisher - should be given a performer's pass to the most prestigious all-star concert of the year. And the fact that it was Bob Dylan being saluted that night made Mr. Wenner's all-access pass seem even more appropriate. After all, he named Rolling Stone not for the Muddy Waters' blues classic or the English rock band of the same name, but for Dylan's revolutionary 1965 anthem, "Like a Rolling Stone." IN THE BEGINNING Ultimately, Jann Wenner's VIP status at the concert illustrated his enormous clout in a music industry he has mirrored and, for better and worse, irrevocably helped change and expand through the pages of Rolling Stone. Launched by Mr. Wenner in 1967 for $7,000, the former counterculture music paper is now a slick, general-interest magazine that earns annual revenues of $110 million. And after a quarter-century of publishing, Mr. Wenner last Thursday took time to look back and celebrate his success with a glittery bash at New York's Four Seasons Restaurant. Among the 400 in attendance were rockers Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Billy Joel and David Bowie and such Hollywood stars as Don Johnson and wife Melanie Griffith. Born into a New York family that moved to San Francisco in 1947 when he was still an infant, Mr. Wenner was a 21-year-old staff writer at the left-leaning Ramparts magazine when he started laying the foundation for Rolling Stone during the "Summer of Love" in 1967. Having dropped out of the University of California, Berkeley, he was eager to create a publication that would give rock 'n' roll the serious attention and evaluation he believed it deserved. The first issue of Rolling Stone came out Nov. 9, 1967. Containing 24 black-and-white pages, it featured a cover photo of John Lennon and an inside feature on the Beatle's impending film, "How I Won the War." Also inside were stories about the Grateful Dead, Donovan, Jimi Hendrix, Mr. Clapton, Country Joe McDonald and the Byrds; an investigative piece on the missing profits from the allegedly nonprofit Monterey Pop Festival; an editorial against racism; and a letter from the editor by Mr. Wenner, who also penned all three of the inaugural issue's album reviews. Costing 25 cents, that first magazine was produced by a staff of 13 headquartered in a minuscule San Francisco office. Distribution, which today reaches 72 countries, was then limited to the Bay Area. 'SUCCESS IN AMERICA' "When we started, I never contemplated this kind of elegant offices in the communications district of New York," Mr. Wenner says, gesturing toward his door and the 200-plus staff beyond. "I had no idea of what stretched ahead of me; you know, success, and what success in America meant." Considerable early guidance fame from Ralph J. Gleason, the crusty jazz and pop critic at the San Francisco Chronicle who was credited as Rolling Stone's first "consulting editor." He served as both a mentor and father figure to the inexpe rienced young publisher. Mr. Gleason, who resigned just shy of the magazine's first anniversary, died of a heart attack at age 58 in 1975. A framed photo of him sits to the left of Mr. Wenner's desk, alongside pictures of Mr. Wenner's family and a small photo of John Lennon. "Ralph taught me to stay with the spirit of the music," Mr. Wenner says, "that music is the bread and butter of the magazine." Mr. Gleason, he admits, probably would find today's far slicker Rolling Stone - award-winning graphics, routine fashion spreads, multicolor double-page ads and vast expanse of Manhattan office space - "entirely too fancy" and "probably too commercial." But his mentor would be proud, too, the former boy publisher believes. By the end of the tumultuous '60s, "the Stone" - as many fondly called it then - was hailed as the most comprehensive, authoritative rock magazine anywhere. "We never seemed to have any trouble getting from issue to issue," Mr. Wenner says, recalling the heady days when potential subscribers were enticed with offers of free "roach clips" to hold their marijuana cigarettes. "There was always more than enough to write about and more than enough to say." Although he attended private schools in California as a youth and grew up in affluence, Mr. Wenner nods vigorously when asked if he considered himself a hippie in those days. "Pretty much," says the casually unshaven publisher, who on this day wears a stylish white cotton dress shirt, natty wool trousers and hand-painted silk tie. "I wasn't living in a sleeping bag or panhandling in Haight-Ashbury. But in terms of attitude, outlook and style, yeah." THE BIG NEWS Jann Wenner benefited greatly from fortunate timing and an abundance of cheap, untapped talent eager to write for a freewheeling publication that unabashedly reflected the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Under his guidance, Rolling Stone spoke to - and for - a generation that was quickly dropping out, tuning in and turning on en masse. "It wasn't that we were doing something that no one had ever done before, because I was always very conscious of the traditions of journalism that we were emulating and taking from," Mr. Wenner says. "But I guess nobody quite put the package together before - that popular culture was big news, and to treat it with the journalistic integrity and guts that we did." Adds former Rolling Stone writer/associate editor Charles Young, 41, now executive editor at Musician magazine: ". . . By combining [music] with a baby boomer sensibility on politics, Jann created the most important magazine in the world, at least up through Watergate." Now, of course, he's a family man (he and wife Jane have three young sons) running a tamer publication. It's liberal, sure, but decidedly not radical. Mr. Wenner admits he was "never that good of a writer." But even his harshest critics concede he had a knack for hiring and nurturing gifted writers and photographers. Among them: a teen-age San Diego rock critic named Cameron Crowe (who wrote and directed the current film "Singles"), investigative reporter Joe Eszterhas (now also a high-priced film writer whose latest credit is "Basic Instinct"), celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz (now at Vanity Fair), music writers such as Mr. Young and Kurt Loder and, of course, Hunter S. Thompson, whose oft-imitated "gonzo" journalism style flourished in the pages of Rolling Stone. "I think my greatest strengths are as an editor; a sort of intuition and insight," Mr. Wenner says. And his greatest weaknesses? "I'm impatient, bitchy and demanding," he replies without hesitation. His detractors might add dictatorial or self-infatuated, but none can deny his continuing success in a field where Rolling Stone's early competitors (such as Crawdaddy and Fusion) passed into oblivion long ago. THE SHOOTING "Jann's great strength as an editor was his willpower and his willingness to be disliked in pursuit of a story," says Mr. Young, whose tenure from 1976 to '80 saw him become the magazine's youngest associate editor. "There are a lot of editors who would rather print an inferior article than confront a writer about what was wrong with it, and Jann was more than willing to confront you. . . . In that sense, he was committed to journalistic excellence. So even though I resented him, a lot of his suggestions were good." Of course, the Rolling Stone of today is greatly changed from its halcyon days. The serious music coverage and insightful reporting remain, but are no longer the unquestioned focal point. There has been a dramatic move toward gossip, trivia and cover stories on insipid TV stars and short-lived trends (the "urban cowboy" phenomenon of the late '70s, the "Miami Vice" TV show of the mid-'80s, today's "Beverly Hills, 90210" silliness). Nevertheless, those who contend that Jann Wenner greedily sold out and that Rolling Stone doesn't mirror the counterculture that was once its bread and butter tend to overlook one fact: The counterculture itself largely sold out in the '70s, trading free sex, anti-materialism and dope for families, conspicuous consumption and far more conservative lifestyles. "I was bothered by the criticisms at first," says Mr. Wenner, who still seems to bristle a bit on the question of the mellowing of his magazine. "But now I don't really pay any attention to it. We do our job right, we put out a great magazine. "The rest of it is just flak you catch. If you live in America and do something successful or stick your head above the ground, somebody is going to be shooting at you." IMAGINE Some in the rock world attacked Mr. Wenner in the '80s, saying he catered to an unadventuresome, young, Republican-dominated audience that preferred to read about inconsequential personalities. Those critics no doubt gloat over how the publisher has felt the recession that was blamed on Reagan-Bush policies. Since 1990, Rolling Stone's advertising pages have declined by 300 pages annually, resulting in a corresponding loss of editorial pages. Mr. Wenner, who plans to launch a children's magazine, predicts that he'll step down from Rolling Stone by the year 2003. "If I were to do something besides this, I'd probably be in politics or government," says Mr. Wenner, who devoted most of a recent issue to an interview with (and endorsement of) Bill Clinton. "It's hard to imagine that in another 25 years, at 71, I'd still be doing this," he muses. "I can imagine doing this another 10 years or so, but I can't imagine doing it beyond that." Still, the publisher adds, Mick Jaggerlike, he's "a little too young" to think about an heir apparent. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM