ROLLING STONE FOUNDER JANN WENNER: Women, Black Musicians Not ‘Articulate Enough’ on ‘Intellectual Level’ to Feature in New Book.

Pressed to defend his comments in light of figures such as Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, and Stevie Wonder, Wenner doubled down on his statement. “[G]o have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest,” Wenner pushes back. “You know, Joni was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll. She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock.”

“Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level,” Wenner maintained in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times published on Friday.

Wenner’s upcoming book, The Masters, features conversations with “philosophers of rock,” including Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Bono. However, Times journalist David Marchese zeroed in on Wenner’s supposed snub of artists who are not “white guys.”

“In the introduction, you acknowledge that performers of color and women performers are just not in your zeitgeist. Which to my mind, is not plausible for Jann Wenner. Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, the list keeps going — not in your zeitgeist?”

‎Little, Brown and Company, the publisher of Wenner’s forthcoming The Masters is owned by Hachette Book Group. Will they drop the book as they did with Woody Allen’s autobiography in 2020, or were Wenner’s comments too close to its expected publishing date next week to affect its printing?