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The first and only biography of Jann Wenner, the iconic founder of Rolling Stone magazine, and a romp through the hothouses of rock and roll, politics, media, and Hollywood, from the Summer of Love to the Internet age.
Lennon. Dylan. Jagger. Belushi. Leibovitz. The story of Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone's founder, editor, and publisher, is an insider's trip through the backstages of storied concert venues, rock-star hotel rooms, and the political ups and downs of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, right up through the digital age: connecting the counterculture of Haight Ashbury to the "straight world." Supplemented by a cache of extraordinary documents and letters from Wenner's personal archives, Sticky Fingers is the story of a mercurial, wide-eyed rock and roll fan of ambiguous sexuality but unambiguous ambition who reinvents youth culture, marketing the libertine world of the late sixties counterculture in a stylish, glossy package that would stand for decades as a testament to the cultural power of American youth. Joe Hagan captures in stunning detail the extraordinary lives constellated around a magazine that began as a scrappy rebellion and became a locus of power, influence, and access--using hundreds of hours of reporting and exclusive interviews. The result is a fascinating and complex portrait of Jann Wenner that is also a biography of popular culture, celebrity, music, and politics in America over the last fifty years. |
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"Gripping"
—The New Yorker “Hagan, to his credit, approached the book not as a rose-tinted ‘authorized biography’ but as a serious work of narrative journalism….He also, through his nuanced portrait of Wenner, shows us how thoroughly the publication reflected its founder, warts and all.” —The Washington Post "Hagan creates a moving portrayal of a complicated, brilliant, flawed man who genuinely moved the needle on American culture... An engaging biography and a lasting legacy for the keeper of rock-’n’-roll’s watchtower." —Kirkus Reviews "[A] searingly honest biography... Hagan has provided an entertaining insider’s history of a legendary magazine." —Publishers Weekly "Hagan has fashioned a fascinating biography of acontroversial figure and the iconic publication he started." —Booklist (starred review) |