ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE. Encyclopedia of American Journalism

Rolling Stone, a magazine dedicated to the coverage of
rock and roll and the lifestyle and culture that the musical
genre embodied, was founded on November 18, 1967, in a
rundown printing shop in San Francisco, California, at the
height of 1960s counterculture and the Vietnam War. The
magazine’s title was based on lyrics from the famous Bob
Dylan song, “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Founder and publisher Jann Wenner was twenty-one
when he started the magazine along with music critic Ralph
J. Gleason. After dropping out of University of California at
Berkeley, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from friends and investors. San Francisco’s Summer of 1967 was often referred to
as “The Summer of Love,” as thousands of hippies flocked
to the city for the live music of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, the literary musings of counterculture writers
Ken Kesey and Alan Ginsberg, the wealth of psychedelic
drugs. They fueled the political unrest that was beginning
to overtake the nation in the wake of the Vietnam War and
assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther
King, Jr. Wenner viewed the launch of Rolling Stone magazine as an opportunity to seize upon the cultural zeitgeist
and offered free marijuana paraphernalia with every new
subscription to the magazine.
Rolling Stone became known for its in-depth rock and
roll reviews and commentary and in-depth political and
cultural think pieces that would occasionally run twenty
thousand words in the early years of the magazine. It also
became known for its raucous, irreverent writers, including Hunter S. Thompson, Joe Eszterhas, Jon Landau, Tom
Wolfe, Lester Bangs, Joe Klein, Greil Marcus, Cameron
Crowe, and Timothy Crouse, who eventually became
journalistic, literary, and creative stars in their own right.
Wenner said that he did not want to be identified with the
underground newspapers of the time, but Rolling Stone
did provide longer narrative articles on American politics
and social issues. Typical issues included stories on U.S.
involvement in the Vietnam War alongside criticism of the
latest releases from bands and interviews of rock superstars. In 1971, Thompson published a first shorter version
of his best-selling book, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
He later followed up with another, “Fear and Loathing on
the Campaign Trail,” a scathing send-up of the Nixon campaign in 1972. Despite Thompson’s drug-addled, somewhat
humorous account, some consider the book to be some of
the most truthful political reporting of the past forty years.
Furthermore, its seminal pieces on rock music and artists
such as Robert Plant, Little Richard, Bob Dylan, and U2,
are considered by some to be superior examples of feature
writing.
The popularity and influence of Rolling Stone moving
into the 1970s can still be heard in a 1973 song titled “The
Cover of the Rolling Stone” written by humorous children’s
author Shel Silverstein and performed by Dr. Hook and
the Medicine Show that makes clear the only way that a
rock band has achieved success is by being placed on the
magazine’s cover. In 1974, the magazine’s circulation was
about 325,000. Perhaps 80 percent of its readers were under
twenty-five years of age.
Through the years that it has been published, Rolling
Stone magazine has also become known for its cutting edge
photography, from the iconic nude photo of Beatle John
Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, to the more recent almostnude shots of teen pop superstar Brittney Spears. Famed
photographer Annie Liebowitz has provided some of the
magazine’s most riveting and recognized photographs of
cultural icons throughout the years.
In 1980, the headquarters of Rolling Stone moved to
New York, where most of the magazine publishing industry resided. By 1998, circulation reached 1.25 million. As of
2006, Wenner, who was still the publisher, operated Wenner
Media from his Manhattan office. He also oversaw Us Weekly
and Men’s Health. Rolling Stone still covered rock music and
politics with a liberal slant—although the stories were far
shorter than twenty thusand words and most of its readers
would most likely not characterize it as revolutionary or as
“the voice of a generation.” It had become a multi-milliondollar publishing giant with a worldwide readership.
Further Reading
Anson, R. S. Gone crazy and back again: The rise and fall of the
Rolling Stone. Generation. Garden City, NY: Doubleday &
Co., 1981.
Seymour, Corey, “On the Cover of Rolling Stone: A Twenty-Fifth
Anniversary Special.” Rolling Stone (December 10, 1992):
147–154.
Draper. R. Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History.
Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1990.
Shayla Thiel

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