Next week, co-founder of esteemed music publication Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner, will be publishing his new book The Masters: Conversations with Dylan, Lennon, Jagger, Townshend, Garcia, Bono, and Springsteen on September 26. As the title suggests, the book contains interviews with some of rock’s most beloved idols like Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, and Bruce Springsteen, as he talks with them about their craft. However, in an interview with the New York Times discussing The Masters, Wenner happened to offer some provocative opinions on Black and female musicians when asked why none were featured in the book.
“It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni [Mitchell] was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll,” he told NYT. “She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock. Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”
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Because of these remarks, Wenner soon lost his position on the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.
“Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,” a rep from the foundation told Rolling Stone.
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Wenner, along with founding Rolling Stone in 1967 and serving in an editor position until 2019, also co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, where he served on the board until this week and as the chairman until 2020.
Later in his NYT conversation, Wenner mentioned that he considered including a handful of Black and female artists to avoid a situation like this, but he ultimately decided against it.
“[Just] for public relations’ sake, maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism,” he added. “Which, I get it. I had a chance to do that. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and I don’t give a [expletive] or whatever. I wish in retrospect I could have interviewed Marvin Gaye. Maybe he’d have been the guy. Maybe Otis Redding had he lived, would have been the guy.”
In the fallout of his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame removal, Wenner released a statement through his publisher Little, Brown & Company, which was obtained by Rolling Stone.
“In my interview with The New York Times, I made comments that diminished the contributions, genius, and impact of Black and women artists and I apologize wholeheartedly for those remarks,” he wrote. “The Masters is a collection of interviews I’ve done over the years that seemed to me to best represent an idea of rock & roll’s impact on my world; they were not meant to represent the whole of music and its diverse and important originators but to reflect the high points of my career and interviews I felt illustrated the breadth and experience in that career. They don’t reflect my appreciation and admiration for myriad totemic, world-changing artists whose music and ideas I revere and will celebrate and promote as long as I live. I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.”
Following this up, Rolling Stone put out a statement of their own, distancing themselves from Wenner.
“Jann Wenner’s recent statements to the New York Times do not represent the values and practices of today’s Rolling Stone,” the publication wrote. “Jann Wenner has not been directly involved in our operations since 2019. Our purpose, especially since his departure, has been to tell stories that reflect the diversity of voices and experiences that shape our world. At Rolling Stone‘s core, is the understanding that music above all can bring us together, not divide us.”
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