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Dylan, Obama and a Crown of Thorns: 50 Years of Rolling Stone

A music magazine whose influence stretched beyond entertainment and into the world of politics could elevate a career with its cover.

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Rolling Stone has chronicled the lives of stars of music and movies, often in images and words from some of the most renowned photographers and writers of their generation.Credit...Annie Leibovitz/Wenner Media

Rolling Stone helped define the counterculture epoch. It filled its pages with the words of renowned writers, including Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Cameron Crowe and Greil Marcus. Its covers minted stars. And while it focused on music, its influence ultimately stretched into pop culture, entertainment and politics.

“It was a magazine about music and the attitudes and things that music embraced,” said Jann S. Wenner, the Rolling Stone founder who has put it up for sale. “Rolling Stone has been one of the great magazines of our time.”

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Jann Wenner in 1970.Credit...Bettmann/Getty Images

Rolling Stone not only covered music, it was enshrined in it: A song written by a poet and illustrator best known for his children’s books, Shel Silverstein, irreverently captured the essence of rock ‘n roll stardom.

Wanna see my picture on the cover

Wanna buy five copies for my mother

Wanna see my smilin' face

On the cover of the Rolling Stone.

John Lennon appeared on the cover of the magazine’s first issue, followed by nearly every rock star, and many celebrities, from the 1960s onward. Mr. Wenner was a particular fan of Bob Dylan, who has appeared on the cover nearly two dozen times.

Provocative photography was also one of the magazine’s hallmarks. The celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz began her association with the magazine in the early 1970s and set the tone for whimsical and insightful portraits, like her 1981 cover photo of Meryl Streep.

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Rolling Stone has mixed politics and culture, as in an issue focusing on climate change that put The Police on the front cover, and one that featured only Barack Obama.Credit...Left to right: Wenner Media, Peter Yang/Wenner Media

Celebrity access — to rock stars and political giants alike — was one of Rolling Stone’s greatest assets. Mr. Wenner himself conducted some of the magazine’s biggest interviews, including with Barack Obama, as a candidate and later as a president. “The access you get everywhere is phenomenal,” Mr. Wenner said.

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A cover that focused on Kayne West drew sharp criticism in 2006.Credit...David LaChapelle/Wenner Media

Mr. Wenner and his editors have long been criticized for relying too heavily on aging rock heroes for Rolling Stone’s covers. But the magazine still had the power to shock, as it did with a 2006 cover story on Kanye West that pictured him bloodied by a crown of thorns. “For every cover of Mick Jagger, you get a cover of Taylor Swift,” Mr. Wenner said. “It’s all great music, and they all belong in one place.”

But Rolling Stone’s covers have also provoked outrage. When it featured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, then a 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, on its cover in 2013, some critics accused the magazine of glamorizing him as it did entertainment superstars.

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An article about an allegation of rape at the University of Virginia led to an embarrassing retraction in 2015.Credit...Wenner Media

Long respected for its journalism, Rolling Stone was badly bruised by a 2014 article about an unproven gang rape at the University of Virginia. The debunked article, which was retracted in 2015 after a damning report from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, prompted three lawsuits and waves of negative coverage for the magazine. The magazine settled two lawsuits, one of which went to trial; a judge dismissed the third last year.

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Gus Wenner has gained some control over Rolling Stone in recent years. He and his father both said they hoped to stay on after the magazine is sold.Credit...Andrew White for The New York Times

Over the last several years, Mr. Wenner has been slowly ceding control of Rolling Stone and its parent company, Wenner Media, to his son, Gus. The younger Mr. Wenner, 27, has jump-started the company’s digital ambitions, and he has plans to increase the magazine’s video production capabilities. But in response to the financial downturn facing the entire industry, he has also aggressively sold off Wenner Media’s assets, including Us Weekly and Men’s Journal. Both Jann and Gus Wenner said they hoped to stay on at Rolling Stone under a new owner, but its sale would conclude their reign.

“It’s the end of an era,” Gus Wenner said in an interview in his office last week, “but it’s the beginning of a new, totally exciting era.”

Sydney Ember is an economics reporter. Previously, she covered Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign and the 2020 election, including living in Iowa for three months during the run-up to the state's caucuses. More about Sydney Ember

Ben Sisario covers the music industry. He has been writing for The Times since 1998. More about Ben Sisario

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