Peter Richardson: Brand New Beat
About this episode
Peter Richardson discusses his book on the history of Rolling Stone and its cultural impact.
Peter Richardson joins Plutopia to discuss Brand New Beat, his history of Rolling Stone’s first decade and its roots in San Francisco counterculture, Ramparts, and the Bay Area music scene. The conversation covers Richardson’s access to Rolling Stone’s private archives, the magazine’s founding by Jann Wenner and Ralph J. Gleason, its early tension between rock journalism and radical politics, its male-dominated “boys’ club” culture, and the roles of writers and editors such as Hunter S. Thompson, Ellen Willis, Ben Fong-Torres, Greil Marcus, Ed Ward, and Cameron Crowe. Richardson also explains how Rolling Stone evolved from a countercultural rock magazine into a broader entertainment and political publication, shaped by celebrity journalism, changing music economics, Annie Leibovitz’s photography, and the magazine’s eventual move away from its original revolutionary hopes. Peter Richardson: Jann Wenner came through town to promote his memoir, and I met him, and at the same event, I met Ben Fong-Torres. And I asked him if I had his support for this book, and that I didn’t want to do it if I didn’t have that support. And he said, well, what do you mean by that? And I…
Topics covered
- Rolling Stone history
- counterculture
- rock journalism
- celebrity journalism
- music economics
- political publication
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