Rock Bottom - The Rise And Fall Of Rolling Stone Magazine, Part 1
How Jann Wenner's baby went from boom to bust.
We take all kind of pills, that give us all kind of thrills/But the thrill we’ve never known/Is the thrill that’ll getcha/When you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone/Wanna see my picture on the cover/Rolling Stone — wanna buy five copies for my mother/Wanna see my smiling face/On the cover of the Rolling Stone.
- ’On The Cover Of The Rolling Stone’, Dr Hook And The Medicine Show
There was a time when appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine was the equivalent of walking on the moon. By far the biggest fish in the musical periodical pond, the publication launched for next to nothing by Jann Wenner in the late 1960s dominated popular culture throughout the 1970s. To this day, it still maintains a hold on what’s ‘in’ in the realms of music, movies, even politics — a young guy called Barack Obama seemed particularly chuffed when the magazine decide to endorse his presidential campaign.
There was an age, however, when the magazine didn’t just support politicians -
it helped set the nation’s agenda. Rolling Stone was as much a part of 1970s America as Nixon and the Vietnam War. But no sooner did it have the future of the US in its hands, than it disappeared up its own backside.
“I launched the magazine in 1967 with next to nothing,” explained Jann Wenner, the man who is to Rolling Stone what Richard Branson is to Virgin. In fact it was a sizeable injection of cash from his future in-laws that made Rolling Stone possible — the title coming from a Muddy Waters song. Originally published in the form of a newspaper, it would take a while for the San Francisco-based publication to find an audience. By the early 1970s, however, what began life as a hobby was becoming very big business indeed.
As Wenner remarked in 2011, “Anyone who was anyone seemed to want to write or work for Rolling Stone. Hunter Thompson, [Basic Instinct screenwriter] Joe Eszterhas, [M*A*S*H director] Robert Altman — we were inundated with interest from the hottest names of the day.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to As Luck Would Have It to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.