(Washington) The co-founder of the magazine Rolling StoneJann Wenner, was ousted from his seat on the board of directors of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the American pantheon of rock and popular music, after comments deemed sexist and racist, the magazine reported on Saturday Variety.
“Jann Wenner has been removed from the board of directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,” the foundation announced in a terse statement, according to Variety.
The ouster of Mr. Wenner, 77, comes the day after the publication of an interview given to New York Timeswhich attracted much criticism.
Asked by the daily about why no female musicians and no musicians of color appear in his next book The Masters (The Masters) – which will be published on September 26 and brings together interviews with seven musicians: Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Bono, Jerry Garcia, Bruce Springsteen and Pete Townshend – he responded about women: “None of them they were not expressed in a sufficiently intellectually structured manner.”
“It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they aren’t eloquent either, however, try having an in-depth conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin […]. You know, Joni [Mitchell] was not a rock’n’roll philosopher. In my opinion, she did not meet this criterion. Neither by her work, nor by the other interviews she has given. The people I interviewed were rock philosophers,” he added.
As for black artists, “you know, Stevie Wonder, a genius, right? I guess the fault lies with using such a strong term as “masters”. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean they weren’t expressing themselves at that level.”
“Look at what Pete Townshend, or Jagger, or any of them wrote,” he continued. “They were writing profound things about a particular generation, a particular spirit and a particular attitude toward rock ‘n’ roll.”
In this interview with NYT, Mr. Wenner said he was aware that his comments would displease some. “As a matter of public relations, maybe I should have included a black artist and a woman artist, not up to that historical standard, just to avoid criticism.”
“I had the opportunity to do it. Maybe I’m old fashioned and don’t care. In retrospect, I wish I could have interviewed Marvin Gaye. He might have been the man for the job. Maybe Otis Redding, if he had lived, would have been the man for the job,” he said.
Mr. Wenner co-founded Rolling Stone in 1967 and left it in 2019. He also created the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, of which he served as president until 2020.