Jann Wenner, the mercurial cofounder and longtime editor in chief of Rolling Stone magazine, hoped to cement his legacy with his latest book, The Masters, a collection of his interviews with rock stars like Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen. Instead, he sullied his reputation by admitting what has been whispered about for years — that he doesn’t think all that much of artists who are women or artists who are people of color.
Wenner’s admission came in a recent interview with , when he only includes interviews with white male musicians. In the book’s introduction, Wenner wrote that female and POC musicians were not in his “zeitgeist.” writer David Marchese (a former reporter for ) asked how is it possible that a man who lived through Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, and Madonna (not to mention Tina Turner, Nina Simone, Carlos Santana, Bob Marley, and Beyoncé) does not have any of these icons in his zeitgeist?