Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge

- Right now I'd like to dedicate this song

to everybody here with hearts, any kind of hearts and ears.

Goes something like this here...

Yeah.

Yeah!

Volume one, number one.

A letter from the editor.

You're probably wondering what we're trying to do.

It's hard to say.

- We hope that we have something here,

sort of a magazine, sort of a newspaper.

- The name of it comes from an old saying.

Muddy Waters used the name for a song he wrote.

- The Stones took their name from Muddy's song.

- It was the title of Bob Dylan's

first rock and roll record.

- It's not just about the music,

but also the things and attitudes

that the music embraces.

- We've been working quite hard on it.

We hope you can dig it.

- To describe it any further would be difficult

without sounding like bullshit.

- Jann, in recent years, sophisticated publications

such as yours and FM radio,

rock and roll is reaching a different age group.

Now, what's the difference between rock and roll now

and the rock and roll of the Elvis Presley,

Everly Brothers era?

- Well, rock and roll is, you know,

is a--is a-- is a particular form

that's changed tremendously and keeps changing

and vastly changing, making a tremendous amount of changes,

and, uh, there was no publication around

that covered it the way it should be covered,

you know, that had treated it

the way it deserved to be treated,

that, you know, understood it, really.

Oh, yeah!

- Jann, is there such thing as a San Francisco sound?

Or is it just that this happened to be the place

where acid rock, or whatever it's called, started?

- The important thing about San Francisco

is that it's a scene.

It's a warm, supportive, friendly city

that's historically, you know, had the Bohemians,

the Beats, that supported the arts, poetry, jazz,

and similarly today it supports rock and roll.

- San Francisco is home to all kinds of artists,

and I loved the excitement of it.

I had tried to do music when I was in college,

but I was not good at it particularly.

I mean, I was not a great guitar player, you know.

I mean, I knew the music, and I loved it.

I could feel it, but that--

that life was not for me.

But what I had as a skill and a natural ability

was journalism.

- In the '60s, rock and roll was becoming more than ever

the medium of communication among young people.

- It was freeing yourself from this gray vision of life

in America that was parentally shaped

and socially shaped by the Eisenhower years.

- Music and the kind of cultural revolution

that was attached to it,

that was the big uncovered story.

At that time, I was living with the woman

I was gonna marry, Jane,

and she had that same enthusiasm

for the sheer joy of the music.

Together, we saw it as really important,

spiritually and culturally, you know?

- We really understood that music

was effecting a change in America.

You could see it and hear it.

In '67, Jann was going down to cover Monterey Pop.

This was before we started "Rolling Stone."

He was there one day, and then he called me, and he said,

"Jane, you've got to come down here.

You will not believe what's happening."

- We were so lucky to have that music

at that time.

I mean, Monterey was incredible.

Thank you.

I had been writing a column

for "The Daily Californian," the student newspaper,

and I wrote it under a pseudonym, Mr. Jones,

called "Something Is Happening by Mr. Jones,"

after the Dylan song.

And it was very much in the mold

of a column that Ralph Gleason was writing

for the "San Francisco Chronicle."

- This is "Jazz Casual," and I'm Ralph Gleason.

John Coltrane, like many of the modern jazz musicians,

feels that the music itself speaks far more fluently

than any human ever could.

I agree with that thoroughly,

and I also endorse the position

that Miles Davis' albums shouldn't have liner notes,

even when I write them.

He was a jazz critic,

but he also would write about popular music

and The Beatles or Dylan and Baez.

- His column was the place you could read

about all these things in your own life,

which were not in the local press.

- They used to say about Ralph

that he couldn't decide whether he was

four 12-year-olds or three 16-year-olds.

And he loved young people,

and he loved the excitement of it.

People trying to get a place in the rock and roll scene

would come over to him and seek advice.

So I introduced myself to him.

He said, "Oh, I know exactly who you are.

I read your column."

And that was just the beginning of it right there.

- He alone among the critical establishment

was receptive to rock and roll

and saw how good a music it was,

how good songwriters these were.

- We knew that Ralph was the best person

to be starting "Rolling Stone" with.

- Jann came over one day and said,

"How about a magazine?"

Like the "Melody Maker" or "New Musical Express"

but an American one that would be different and better,

that would cover not just, uh, not just the records

and the music but would cover the whole culture.

I find it regrettable and sad

that some of my friends do not share my enjoyment

for the contemporary musicians,

much less regard them

with the respect with which I regard them

or see them as important as I see them.

The only way to stay alive is to stay open.

The minute you shut yourself off

and shut yourself up, you start to rot.

You die of dry rot.

"Rolling Stone" started with the assumption

that music was of infinitely greater importance

to an upcoming generation of Americans

than anyone had ever thought it was before,

and we were right.

[Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" plays]