Starting in 1985, I subscribed to Rolling Stone magazine for nearly 15 years, right up until the day it put The Spice Girls on the cover, and I decided maybe it would be best not to renew. I’ve seen maybe half a dozen issues since, all of which confirm my money was best spent elsewhere.
But when it was a magazine mostly devoted to music – rather than politics and/or pop-culture icons of the moment – the Q&A interviews were among my favorite features. Many from the periodical’s four-decade run are collected in THE ROLLING STONE INTERVIEWS, edited by its co-founder Jann Wenner with Joe Levy.
Wenner’s introduction is pretty self-congratulatory, but to be fair, RS was revolutionary in its infancy, and helped change the face of journalism. The interviews were often quite insightful, and somehow the reporters got their subjects to open up, nakedly and honestly.
Presented chronologically, the interviews – or excerpts, as the case may be – start with The Who’s Pete Townshend, before moving on to other classic-rock idols of the day like Jim Morrison and John Lennon. They capture Johnny Cash before he was a crossover legend and Brian Wilson before he was lucid enough again.
Bono, Eminem and Axl Rose represent the more current class members of rock, with the latter revealing his abuse as a child. Kurt Cobain was interviewed shortly before he killed himself; Courtney Love shortly afterward.
But it’s not all devoted to music. There are journalists such as Tom Wolfe and – being interviewed by Andy Warhol, who would port the Q&A style over to his own Interview – Truman Capote, who talks about the debauchery he witnessed on tour with the Rolling Stones.
David Letterman is included, in his typical self-depreciating style, as are funnymen Bill Murray, Johnny Carson and (alleged funnyman) Robin Williams. The more interesting showbiz conversations, however, are devoted to Francis Ford Coppola discussing the APOCALYPSE NOW fallout, Jack Nicholson dishing on his favorite topics (sex and drugs) and George Lucas just after the success of STAR WARS, already talking about how he wished he could tinker with the displeasing-to-him results.
I could do without the overtly agenda-pushing issues-oriented pieces – and did, when the gag reflex kicked in; Bill Clinton, the Dalai Lama and even Hunter S. Thompson fall into this group.
Wenner plays the probing journalist part for many, while others are conducted by David Fricke, Mikal Gilmore, P.J. O’Rourke, Greil Marcus, Bill Zehme, Ben Fong-Torres and Cameron Crowe – bylines which should be familiar to regular RS readers of the past. Those are the ones who will enjoy this anthology most. –Rod Lott
