The co-founder of the music magazine Rolling Stones, Jann Wenner, has been expelled from the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation because of comments that were classified as sexist and xenophobic. “Jann Wenner has been removed from the board of the ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame'”, quoted the journal Variety on Saturday a statement from the foundation. The criticism was triggered by a Interview the New York Times.
The newspaper asked the 77-year-old why he preferred to interview white men in his new book “The Masters” but not black musicians or women. In his book, Wenner portrays the musicians Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Jerry Garcia, Bono and Bruce Springsteen. Wenner said that New York Times According to him, its seven protagonists are a kind of “philosophers of rock” who have profound things to say about the spirit of their generation. “Those are the ones who were really able to articulate it,” Wenner said. To women he said that none of them had been so eloquent on this intellectual level. Even black geniuses like Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye would not have expressed themselves on this level.
Wenner has since apologized for his comments. Loud Variety He shared that he had belittled the contributions, genius and influence of black and female artists. His book should “not represent all of music and its diverse and important authors, but rather the highlights of my career.”
The 77-year-old founded the music magazine Rolling Stones in 1967 with. In the decades that followed, he often conducted long interviews with important rock musicians.