As late as the 1990s, hip capitalist rock music industry establishment publications like Rolling Stone and Spin magazines apparently still operated in an institutionally sexist way, in relation to women music journalists. As music journalist Lucy O'Brien wrote in her 1996-published She-Bop: The Definitive History Of Women In Rock, Pop and Soul book:
"Being a female music journalist has its particular obstacles, too...Like many female journalists, I found that `serious' long articles inevitably went to the male writers, while too often we were kept to writing reviews, short pieces or doing interviews with women artists. Women are not considered heavy-weight enough to comment on the top male acts of the day--be it Public Enemy or Iggy Pop. Women rarely get staff positions with power to commission other writers. In 1994, for instance, the senior editorial team of Rolling Stone consisted of 10 men and two women, while among their contributing editors (including Kurt Loder, Greil Marcus and Robert Palmer) there were three women and 27 men. Spin did marginally better with six female and 27 male writers on the masthead, plus one woman among six top editors..."
By 1970 the hip capitalist establishment Rolling Stone magazine of Wenner was also being criticized by U.S. women's liberation and radical feminist movement activists and women rock music critics like Ellen Willis for its sexism. As Joe Hagan's 2017 Sticky Fingers book recalled:
"Ellen Willis, a pioneering feminist and the first rock critic at The New Yorker, wrote to Ralph Gleason in 1970 saying she refused to write for Rolling Stone because it was `viciously anti-women.' `RS habitually refers to women as chicks and treats us as chicks; i.e. interchangeable cute fucking machines,' she wrote, adding...that Jann Wenner's bias against revolutionary politics fed the oppression of females: `To me, when a bunch of snotty upper-middle white males start telling me that politics isn't where its at, that is simply an attempt to defend their privileges'..."
And according to the same Sticky Fingers book:
"Around the offices of Rolling Stone, Wenner was known for his jovial sexual harassment. He didn't discriminate between men and women...`He was hitting on every girl and every guy,' said Lynn Hirschberg. `He once grabbed me around the hips and said, `Ten more pounds and you'll be perfect.' This was in front of everybody at a meeting and I wanted to die. It was like this schoolboy crap.'..."
As a long-time member of the Hip Capitalist Establishment since the late 1960s, Rolling Stone magazine's owner and publisher between 1967 and late 2017, Wenner, apparently accumulated over $700 million in personal worth according to the Celebrity Net Worth website, during the 5 decades between 1970 and its sale to Penske Media Inc. in late 2017. And in 2020, the Hip Capitalist Establishment's Rolling Stone magazine website still apparently doesn't encourage most U.S. music fans who still bother to read Rolling Stone magazine to get more into non-commercially-motivated, anti-establishment protest folk music very much during the 21st-century.
For as Rolling Stone magazine's long-time hip capitalist former owner and publisher Jann Wenner said as long ago as 1977:
"I think Rolling Stone is establishment. I think that rock culture...has become establishment in this country, and is the leading cultural establishment in this country right now." (end of article)
As early as the late 1960s, Hip Capitalist Publisher Wenner was already apparently collaborating with record company executives of corporate media conglomerates like CBS, that wished to make a lot of money by exploiting the youth market of rock music fans. As Joe Hagan's 2017 Sticky Fingers book recalled:
"...Rolling Stone's relationship to the `Columbia Rock Machine' had grown increasingly tight, starting with its first advertisement in issue No. 8. Clive Davis, having ascended to president of CBS Records...viewed Wenner as an ally in building a new industry out of rock and roll, and he gave Rolling Stone its first steady advertising contract to keep the newspaper afloat...Davis put Rolling Stone into record stores through Columbia's distribution system, which...accounted for 15 percent of the newspaper's single-copy sales [in the late 1960s]...In addition, Jann Wenner was using Columbia's office in New York as a virtual bureau of Rolling Stone. In a letter to Bob Altshuler, the publicist for Columbia, Wenner thanked him for the `favors, the lunchs (sic), the tickets, and the use of your secretaries and office...'...Wenner...set up camp at Columbia to lay out a promotional ad for...a full-page in The New York Times..."
So, not surprisingly, when Abbie Hoffman and other Youth International Party/Yippie activists in the late 1960s U.S. antiwar Movement called upon U.S. music fans to protest against the Vietnam War, the System and the U.S. Establishment at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and participate in "Festival of Life" antiwar music concerts in Chicago, hip capitalist publisher Wenner urged Rolling Stone readers to stay away from both the antiwar movement street protests and the planned "Festival of Life" concerts and rallies in Chicago's parks.
In exchange for apparently acting as a marketing and public relations/propaganda tool of the U.S. Establishment's corporate media conglomerates' record company subsidiaries, by 1970 Rolling Stone magazine apparently began receiving additional funds from some of the same record companies whose special corporate interests it promoted. As Joe Hagan noted in his Sticky Fingers book:
"[In 1970] Ralph Gleason...recognized that Wenner was in real [financial] trouble. It was Gleason, Wenner said, who pointed him to the record labels; perhaps they could be convinced to help bail Wenner out of his financial woes. Wenner first approached Jac Holzman of Elektra and explained his situation. `I'd say,...' recounted Wenner,`...I need an advance of money, give me some money, I need money in the bank.'
"...Holzman became a strong financial booster of Rolling Stone, and Wenner put his artists, the Doors and the MC5 on the cover. Along with Clive Davis of CBS, who gave Rolling Stone more than 30,000 [equal to over $202,000 in 2020] in advance advertising and some free business consultation, Holzman agreed to help Wenner by explaining his situation to Steve Ross...who was rolling up the independent record labels under his corporate umbrella...(later renamed Warner Communications). Holzman was about to sell Elektra to Ross for $10 million [equal to over $68.1 million in 2020]...Ross owned Independent News, the magazine distributor...Independent agreed to cut Wenner a check for $100,000 [equal to over $661,000 in 2020]..."
In addition, according to the same book, "Wenner recounted in 1976" that "`then Clive and Jac each advanced me something like $25,000 [equal to over $170,000 in 2020] or $35,000 [equal to over $238,000 in 2020];'" and "Wenner said Gil Friesen of A & M weighed in with another $30,000 [equal to over $202,000 in 2020]. And "by the end of 1970, Wenner had...the financial backing of the American record industry...and...a new investor on the hook, Max Palevsky, chairman of the Xerox Corporation, a multimillionaire prepared to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into Rolling Stone in 1971..." So, not surprisingly, "a story line gelled in the underground press: Jann Wenner was the man who sold out the revolution for dirty record money;" and "The Yipster Times ran a story called `The Day Rolling Stone Sold Out To Xerox'" in the mid-1970s "claiming Xerox paid off Wenner's debts in exchange for opposing antiwar demonstrations." (end of part 3)
Before becoming a hip capitalist music magazine publisher/owner between the late 1960s and 2018, Jann Wenner--after having worked in 1964 as a campus stringer at the University of California-Berkeley for the then-RCA-owned NBC News establishment radio-tv corporate media news subsidiary--had, ironically, worked for the 1960s antiwar left-wing magazine, Ramparts, that first exposed in 1967 the CIA's covert funding of the National Student Association [NSA] during the 1950s and early 1960s. As Joe Hagan recalled in his 2017 Sticky Fingers book:
"Wenner's fortunes began when Ramparts, a monthly founded by left-wing Catholics...decided to launch a biweekly broadsheet in the fall of 1966 called The Sunday Ramparts...[Ralph] Gleason, a member of Ramparts' editorial board, recommended Wenner as an editor and `rock and roll specialist,' and Wenner...moved...to San Francisco to help put out the first issue in October 1966..."
During that same year of 1966, according to the same book, Wenner also "was classified as 1-A by the Selective Service System making him available for the Vietnam draft;" but according to Sticky Fingers author Hagan, "to help Wenner avoid the war," a "Dr. Martin Hoffman on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley" then "diagnosed him with a `serious personality disorder'" and Dr. Hoffman's "letter to the army draft board...achieved its purpose."
According to the Sticky Fingers book, "in creating Rolling Stone, Wenner borrowed heavily from...The Sunday Ramparts, where Wenner worked until it ceased publication in June 1967." The same 2017 book also observed, however, that, during the Spring of 1967, "Wenner was approached by Chet Helms, who told Wenner he was germinating a hippie music magazine for distribution in record stores" and "Helms came to believe Wenner had slunk away with his idea..." Sticky Fingers author Hagan also noted that Crawdaddy!, not Rolling Stone magazine, was actually "the first American rock-and-roll magazine;" and that Paul Williams, not Wenner, actually "invented in 1966" the first rock-and-roll magazine, which "was named for the club where the Rolling Stones" band "first played."
Much of the initial $2,500 [equal to over $19,500 in 2020] capital that Multi-Millionaire hip capitalist Wenner (whose 21st-century personal wealth was estimated to be $700 million by the Celebrity Net Worth website in recent years) required to launch his Rolling Stone magazine in California in October 1967 apparently came from a Manhattan dentist named Dr. Schindelheim--the father of Wenner's then womanfriend and later wife/ex-wife, Jane Schindelheim. The parents of Jane Schindelheim provided Wenner with $2,000 [equal to over $15,600 in 2020]. As the Sticky Fingers book noted:
"They wrote the check, plus a little extra, and gave Rolling Stone the financial push it needed. The money Dr. Schindelheim earned...also gave...daughter an ownership stake in Rolling Stone...which, in early October 1967, Wenner incorporated...under a name he liked quite a lot: Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc."
According to Sticky Fingers author Joe Hagan, much of the Rolling Stone magazine "thing" that was first published by Wenner on Oct. 18, 1967 had apparently "been begged, borrowed, recycled and stolen. Chet Helm [who died in 2005]...; Ralph Gleason's title...; the newsprint and layout of The Sunday Ramparts...; several stories from the Melody Maker [music magazine of the UK], rewritten by Susan Lydon..." (end of part 2.)
"I think Rolling Stone is establishment. I think that rock culture...has become establishment in this country, and is the leading cultural establishment in this country right now."
--Rolling Stone Magazine Inc. Owner Jann Wenner in 1977
"...Jann Wenner's oldest and dearest friends--people who worked for him in the 1960s and after--could not help but notice the likeness between Trump and the Jann Wenner they knew. The crude egotism, the neediness, the total devotion to celebrity and power. Wenner and Trump were the same age and had met a couple of times at charity events in Manhattan..."
--page 503 of former Rolling Stone magazine and former Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Hagan's 2017 book, Sticky Fingers
Hip Capitalist Establishment's Rolling Stone Magazine Revisited: Part 1
In 2020 many music fans in the United States are now anti-capitalist, socialist or libertarian anarchist in their politics. Yet between the late 1960s and 2018, a magazine that published many articles about the music that many music fans in the United States listen to each month, Rolling Stone magazine, was mostly owned by a multi-millionaire white hip capitalist member of the U.S. Establishment named Jann Wenner, prior to it being sold to Penske Media Inc. in late 2017.
Not surprisingly, before Wenner became a hip capitalist music magazine publisher in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a member of the U.S. white corporate male hip capitalist media establishment by the end of the 1970s, he apparently was not much of a teenage rebel against the U.S. Establishment in his political beliefs or in the way he lived his life. As Joe Hagan observed in his 2017 book Sticky Fingers:
"Wenner...was...a Kennedy-worshiping preppy whose thwarted ambition to attend Harvard had diverted him to Berkeley...An inveterate social climber...Wenner crashed debutante balls and went on ski weekends to private resorts with rich friends...who knew Kennedys and Hearsts...As a teenager, he attended a boarding school in Los Angeles that housed the offspring of Hollywood royalty, including Liza Minnelli..."
In addition, during the 1950s, the Rolling Stone magazine owner's mother, Sim Wenner, "was involved in the California Democratic Council" and "befriended Democrat Alan Cranston, who later became a senator from California;" and, along with Jann Wenner's father, Baby Formula Inc. owner Ed Wenner, "socialized with...the Roth family, who owned the Matson shipping company," according to the same book. (end of part 1)
If you're a 21st-century music fan who checks out the "Untold Dylan" discussion group on Facebook, you might notice that most of the daily posts there don't tell readers very much about how Bob Dylan historically obtained more individual wealth than the individual wealth possessed by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, historically, or by the over 90 percent of U.S. and UK music fans who--unlike Bob Dylan in the 21st-century--are, currently, neither billionaires, multi-millionaires or millionaires.
One reason might be because the "Untold Dylan" blog Brit editor-writer, Tony Attwood (who determines which individuals are allowed to tell what's generally untold--by most Brit and U.S. Establishment media rock music critics in the 21st-century--on the "Untold Dylan" Facebook discussion group page), apparently doesn't want too allow too many posts that tell how Dylan historically obtained his individual wealth to appear on this "Untold Dylan" discussion group page.
Asked by email to indicate for Protest Folk Magazine blog readers whether or not pre-1965 Dylan music fans from U.S. working-class backgrounds are currently being blocked from posting links or text excerpts of historical articles that are critical of Dylan's post-1964 artistic/political/philosophical shift, Mr. Attwood stated the following in a February 22, 2020 email:
"Thank you for your email. I''m very happy to answer.
"The simple answer is that there is no general policy to block any group of people or any individual because of political or social views at all except the need to abide by UK law (the Untold Dylan Facebook group being run from the UK).
"The number of people blocked is quite small--probably around quarter of one percent of those who join are eventually blocked. The vast majority of those are blocked because of offensive or insulting language towards other members of the group or for placing advertisements for their own produces or services. In the latter case when a member writes to me first and asks permission and when I think the item is one that some members are likely to be interested, I have given permission for one advert to be posted but only one.
"In relation to the issue that you mention, we did have a case recently where a member had posted a series of posts each of which was (and I am generalizing here from a number of posts) putting forward the view that Dylan or Dylan's company acting in his name had stolen or abused or otherwise misused other people's copyright for his own financial gain. (You will appreciate that I am summarizing what were often quite long and complex pieces).
"I did allow these to go through at first, but had a fair number of complaints from other readers to me suggesting that these were repetitive in their general approach, and would be better off posted on the website as an article. In that way the correspondent could lay out his/her case, and comments in support or against could be channeled into that one part of the website. (That is why we have both the website and the Facebook page, to separate out different types of discussion).
"I took the view that having posted a number of the articles all of which were dealing with the allegations of Dylan having stolen copyright and with (as far as I recall) no one or very few people showing any interest in the articles (except in terms of abuse) that moving the theme to the blog away from the Facebook site would benefit everyone. Those who wanted to follow the debate had one place to do it, and those who felt the allegations were false or of no interest did not have to keep reading variants on the same theme on the Facebook page.
"I wrote twice to the individual concerned once explaining my concerns and once proposing the move to the website, but received no reply, and so when the individual posted again I removed him and the posts from the group. The offer to have an article on the subject on the blog would of course still be there. To be clear there has been only one person involved in this as far as I know, it is not that more than one person has been removed.
"I would add that a guiding point in my running the Facebook and website pages is the name Untold Dylan--the point of "untold" is that we try to look at Dylan from different points of view that have not been covered before. The original posts which challenged Dylan's copyright approach was just that, and so were posted, but subsequent items merely re-iterated generally the same point, and thus were no longer Untold. I don't use that as an absolute measure of what is posted but it does seem to me to be an interesting guiding point when the issue is contentious.
"Having had no reply from the individual, I did cancel his account.
"I hope that answers the question--please do come back to me if you have any further thoughts about the Facebook page. I would add I am in the UK and as a result there can be different understandings of what might be a serious accusation of a crime for which the owner of the site could be challenged legally in one country from another--which is of course always a consideration.
"Tony Attwood."
And in a second February 22, 202 email, Mr. Attwood added:
"Sorry I missed one point - the reference to `pre-1965 Dylan music fans from U.S. working-class backgrounds.'. I would assure you that as a person born before 1965, and from a working class UK background, I would never dream of judging anyone according to their social class, ethnicity, country of origin or anything else."
In November 1964, the then-editor of Sing-Out! magazine, Irwin Silber, wrote and published `An Open Letter To Bob Dylan," in which the historically developing artistic, political and philosophical shift in Dylan's songwriting was criticized in the following way:
"Dear Bob:
"It seems as though lots of people are thinking and talking about you these days. I read about you in Life and Newsweek and Time and The Saturday Evening Post and Mademoiselle and Cavalier and all such, and I realize that, all of a sudden, you have become a pheenom, a VIP, a celebrity. A lot has happened to you in these past two years, Bob -- a lot more than most of us thought possible.
"I'm writing this letter now because some of what has happened is troubling me. And not me alone. Many other good friends of yours as well.
"I don't have to tell you how we at SING OUT! feel about you -- about your work as a writer and an artist -- or how we feel about you as a person. SING OUT! was among the first to respond to the new ideas, new images, and new sounds that you were creating. By last count, thirteen of your songs had appeared in these pages. Maybe more of Woody's songs were printed here over the years, but, if so, he's the only one. Not that we were doing you any favors, Bob. Far from it. We believed -- and still believe -- that these have been among some of the best new songs to appear in America in more than a decade. "Blowin' in the Wind," "Don't Think Twice," "Hattie Carroll," "Restless Farewell," "Masters of War" -- these have been inspired contributions which have already had a significant impact on American consciousness and style.
"As with anyone who ventures down uncharted paths, you've aroused a growing number of petty critics. Some don't like the way you wear your hair or your clothes. Some don't like the way you sing. Some don't like the fact that you've chosen your name and recast your past. But all of that, in the long run, is trivial. We both know that may of these criticisms are simply cover-ups for embarrassment at hearing songs that speak directly, personally, and urgently about where it's all really at.
"But -- and this is the reason for this letter, Bob -- I think that the times there are a-changing. You seem to be in a different kind of bag now, Bob -- and I'm worried about it. I saw at Newport how you had somehow lost contact with people. It seemed to me that some of the paraphernalia of fame were getting in your way. You travel with an entourage now -- with good buddies who are going to laugh when you need laughing and drink wine with you and insure your privacy -- and never challenge you to face everyone else's reality again.
"I thought (and so did you) of Jimmy Dean when I saw you last -- and I cried a little inside me for that awful potential for self-destruction which lies hidden in all of us and which can emerge so easily and so uninvited.
"I think it begins to show up in your songs, now, Bob. You said you weren't a writer of `protest' songs -- or any other category, for that matter -- but you just wrote songs. Well, okay, call it anything you want. But any songwriter who tries to deal honestly with reality in this world is bound to write `protest' songs. How can he help himself?
"Your new songs seem to be all inner-directed now, inner-probing, self- conscious -- maybe even a little maudlin or a little cruel on occasion. And it's happening on stage, too. You seem to be relating to a handful of cronies behind the scenes now -- rather than to the rest of us out front.
"Now, that's all okay -- if that's the way you want it, Bob. But then you're a different Bob Dylan from the one we knew. The old one never wasted our precious time.
"Perhaps this letter has been long overdue. I think, in a sense, that we are all responsible for what's been happening to you -- and to many other fine young artists. The American Success Machinery chews up geniuses at a rate of one a day and still hungers for more. Unable to produce real art on its own, the Establishment breeds creativity in protest against and nonconformity to the System. And then, through notoriety, fast money, and status, it makes it almost impossible for the artist to function and grow.
"It is a process that must be constantly guarded against and fought.
"Give it some thought, Bob. Believe me when I say that this letter is written out of love and deep concern. I wouldn't be sticking my neck out like this otherwise.
"Irwin Silber"
