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Jann Wenner, the co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine who also helped found the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, was removed from the hall’s board of directors after making comments in an interview that were seen as disparaging of female musicians and people of color Female artists were criticized.
“Jann Wenner has been removed from the board of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,” the hall said in a statement released Saturday, which did not provide further details. The decision was announced a day after Wenner’s comments were published in an interview with The New York Times.
The foundation and a representative for Wenner, 77, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Times interview coincided with the upcoming release this month of Wenner’s book “The Masters,” a compilation of his interviews over the years with music greats Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend and Bono from U2 – Everyone is white and male.
When asked by Times reporter David Marchese why he didn’t include artists, people or women on his list of rock legends, Wenner replied: “As far as women go, none of them were quite as articulate enough on that intellectual level.”
He went on to say that artists like Joni Mitchell did not meet his criteria to be considered a “philosopher of rock and roll.”
“In my opinion, she failed that test,” Wenner said. “Not through her work, not through other interviews she has done. The people I interviewed were rock philosophers.”
Referring to artists of color, he continued: “Of black artists – you know, Stevie Wonder, a genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as “master,” the mistake is in using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just couldn’t articulate themselves at that level.”
Perspective: Female rock legends don’t “articulate” themselves enough for the co-founder of Rolling Stone
Wenner’s comments sparked immediate backlash online and beyond. The Montclair Literary Festival in New Jersey, where he was scheduled to appear as a featured guest, canceled a Sept. 28 promotion for his book.
On social media, commentators again voiced criticism of his previous writing and Rolling Stone’s coverage of female artists under his direction.
Rock critic Jessica Hopper joked that “The Masters” would more accurately be called “The Misters.” And Joe Hagan, a writer for Vanity Fair who published a critical biography of Wenner called “Sticky Fingers” in 2017, tweeted that Rolling Stone under Wenner was full of chauvinism.
Wenner founded Rolling Stone with Ralph J. Gleason in 1967 and spent decades at the helm before leaving the magazine in 2019. He was also among the group of music and media executives who founded the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983.
The Hall has also been criticized for its relative lack of female and minority recruits, although there have been some recent improvements. According to an LA Times report, the Class of 2023 was the most diverse in the organization’s history, with women and musicians of color outnumbering white men.
However, of the 719 inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in all categories at the beginning of 2023, only 61 are women. accordingly Funnel. Meanwhile, “the percentage of all people of color in the Hall has declined each year,” from 55.8 percent in 1989 to 32.7 percent in 2019, pop culture scholar and Hall voter Evelyn McDonnell wrote this year.
Wenner was inducted into the hall as a non-performer in 2004.
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