Jann Wenner, 'Rolling Stone,' And The Decline Of Rock 'N' Roll

Joe Hagan knew, before he typed out the first word of Sticky Fingers, his new biography of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner composed of endless access to Wenner and his extensive archives, and interviews with 140 others, that it would receive little love from its subject upon publication. In the afterword to his book, he describes a "protracted negotiation with Wenner in which he cajoled and charmed and I fretted and wrung my hands." Wenner is, for better and for worse, inextricable from the creation he smelted, cocaine sweat on his brow and gentry funding in hand, amidst the cultural and civic fires of the '60s and '70s. And he's commensurately protective of their shared legacy. At least two previous attempts at this book were scuppered by Wenner, so Hagan — wisely — requested all the access without any of the oversight, not allowing his subject final cut. "The biography would be independent, not 'authorized' in the usual sense," Hagan explains. Wenner is unhappy with the result, and Sticky Fingers goes a long way towards explaining why this was probably inevitable.