ROLLING STONE
Must-see doco on the mag, the myth & the music
Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge (Prime, Tuesday, 9.35pm) is a fascinating, if flawed, examination of the rock’n’roll magazine that began as a chronicle of US counterculture. The six-part series is directed by uber-documentarian Alex Gibney and producing partner Blair Foster.
It was made to celebrate 50 years of Rolling Stone, but also coincided with founding editor Jann Wenner, whose behaviour has been under scrutiny in a new biography, selling his 51% stake.
But regardless of whether it is, as one US critic put it, “a hell of a puff piece”, it’s also an
insider look at a magazine that described and shaped pop culture for a long time.
In 1967, Wenner and wife Jane borrowed $7500 to start the magazine, and there is terrific footage from the early days of crowded offices and overflowing ashtrays.
Gibney and Foster focus on the stories they believe typify the magazine: the rock groupies story from 1969; the Ike and Tina Turner profile in 1971
that exposed his overbearing behaviour; interviews with John Lennon; the controversy over Ice-T’s Cop Killer; the brilliant political reporting by the likes of Hunter S Thompson and Matt Taibbi. Wenner, Cameron Crowe and Annie Leibovitz are interviewed.
Mistakes are acknowledged, in particular, the magazine’s fabricated “rape on campus” story of 2015, which resulted in $3 million in damages.