I have such mixed feelings about this book. If I rate it for the quality of the writing and what I learned from it, it's quite positive, but for the personal appeal of the author, let's just say I'd never want to meet him.
Jann Wenner founded the magazine Rolling Stone back in the late '60s and built it into an important powerhouse of music reviews, politics, and cultural comment. Reading about his life and the evolution of his journalism career was simultaneously fascinating and infuriating.
Fascinating, for his insider's perspective, because I too was young (though some years younger than Wenner) through the '60s, '70s, and '80s, the three decades that represent the heyday of the magazine's development, and a fan of some of the musicians and others that populated his world. What I found most interesting of all was his friendship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which seemed initially like an improbable class and culture clash, but in the reading, it became clear just how connected Wenner became with some of the most iconic people of his time – not just those in rock music.
The infuriating aspect struck me some 100 pages in – just how evident what an old boys' club the music business and the magazine itself, like so many others, was and generally is. Certainly, I knew that, but he brought it home so clearly. Women musicians and journalists did not appear much in Wenner's massive book. He described Bette Midler as a close friend, and mentioned a few occasions in which she performed a song at a social gathering, but there is nothing much about her illustrious career, or her smash albums like The Divine Miss M. He briefly touched on Janis Joplin (mostly her death by overdose), Joan Baez's name cropped up a couple of times, and Judy Collins exactly once, but where were Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, or other music-making women of the era, like Karen Carpenter, Laura Nyro, and Cass Elliot? Even Carole King failed to appear, despite her enormous impact on popular music. Her album, Tapestry, was number one for months and a best-seller for years; and of course she wrote "You've Got a Friend", which helped shoot James Taylor's career into the stratosphere, where it still hovers decades later. Wenner stressed his close ties and friendships with some of the very biggest male names in music: Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Bono, and wrote extensively about them. When he wrote about Yoko Ono, it was usually in the context of her relationship and marriage to Lennon.
The woman who figured most in the development of the magazine was photographer Annie Leibovitz, but while on one hand he touted her brilliance, he alternatively spared no detail of her drug use and addiction. He wrote extensively about the drug and alcohol habits and destructiveness (his own and otherwise) of many, including Keith Richards, but he really savaged Leibovitz.
Wenner discussed his sexual confusion and ambivalence from early on, but eventually came out as gay. He described the developments of his evolution in depth. He seems content, but I felt so sorry for his wife, Jane, who was with him for decades, and with whom he had three sons. He eventually left her for a man, Matt Nye, who was quite a bit younger. Their relationship is long term, and now a married one. They had three additional children via artificial insemination with an unknown woman (or women, not disclosed). He mentioned occasionally about how hurtful it all was for Jane, and the book is full of painful public revelations about their relationship and family. I can't imagine how it must be for her, and even though he writes something of what he deems her acceptance of the circumstances, it makes me sad for her.
Like so many men, privileged like Wenner, or not, straight or gay, he is essentially misogynistic but doesn't recognize it – to some degree that makes him a product of his times and culture, but it is not something that can be easily overlooked. Women's contributions in his field and at his former media empire were diminished, or demeaned as with Leibovitz. He tries to excuse himself and portray himself somewhat differently, but when he mentions perhaps halfway through that he was adding women writers to his previously all-male staff, it felt condescending and false. I considered returning the book to the library at that point, but since I had already invested so much time, I continued, with growing wariness.
However, it is a memoir, and highly personal, so as such it covers his life, career, and relationships from his perspective, but it is a forceful reminder of how women have been treated marginally in music and journalism, and that is something that can’t be ignored.
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