Jann Wenner—Rolling Stone Founder—Gets Bio

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Jann Wenner in the early days of Rolling Stone

A new biography, Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, will be published by Alfred A. Knopf on October 24. The bio is based on author Joe Hagan’s extensive interviews with Wenner and on original source reporting. According to a press release, “It draws from Wenner’s vast archive of correspondence and rare documents, items that have never been made available to a journalist.”

The very first issue of Rolling Stone, from 1967

The release states: “In Sticky Fingers, Hagan goes deep on the mercurial editor and his legacy by securing on-the-record interviews with Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Bono, Art Garfunkel, Elton John, Cameron Crowe, Keith Richards, Pete Townsend, Yoko Ono, Lorne Michaels, Steve Miller, Jon Landau, Dan Aykroyd, Michael Douglas, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Billy Joel, Bette Midler, David Geffen, Tom Wolfe, Annie Leibovitz and Danny Fields, among others. Their candid and revealing comments depict the extremes Wenner has been willing to visit in pursuit of success (and pleasure), and help to explain how Rolling Stone became a locus of power and influence and headline-making news, from Altamont to Fear and Loathing to the University of Virginia rape allegation.”

Pre-order is available here.

Sticky Fingers book jacket

Hagan, the release states, “lays out the full breadth of Wenner’s life, from his ambitious youth in San Francisco and the uncertain first days of Rolling Stone, to his seismic rise as a 1970s kingmaker of rock and roll and a vainglorious and irascible media mogul of Manhattan.”

Hagan also reports “on the legendary excesses that have defined Rolling Stone, unearthing stunning revelations about the private lives and secret histories of the principals in Wenner’s orbit—among them Hunter S. Thompson, Annie Leibovitz, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, and a Hall-of-Fame cast of rock ’n’ rollers. Many dramas at the heart of rock history, including feuds over money (Wenner with Lennon), confrontations over coverage (Wenner with Dylan), secret deals and pacts (Wenner with Jagger), epic infidelities and sex triangles (including love affairs that nearly destroyed Rolling Stone), stormy relationships that led to stunning betrayals, and near fatal drug overdoses, are told in these pages for the very first time.”

Watch a CBS This Morning interview with Jann Wenner