Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner’s book of interviews he conducted with famous rock ‘n’ roll artists will be published next week. It’s called The Masters, and its subjects are Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Jerry Garcia, Pete Townshend, Bono and Bruce Springsteen. Here’s Wenner responding to a reporter who asked why the book doesn’t include any interviews with Black or female artists:

Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.

It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. 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.

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit was taken aback, not so much because Wenner’s comments are so controversial but rather because they’re so … inarticulate. For example, “…None of them [women rockers] were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”

“Ain’t this the same guy who ran the rock ‘n’ roll Bible?” Swamp Rabbit said. “The hippest magazine that ever was? Your main source of info about the sounds that shaped your boomer generation? How could he say such stupid shit?”

I told him Rolling Stone was once a great magazine. That Wenner hired some of the most insightful music writers and investigative reporters in the business and kept the magazine operating at a high level throughout the years when rock ‘n’ roll was a dominant force in the culture.

“But don’t put words in my mouth,” I said. “I liked Rolling Stone because of the writing, not because it spoke for my generation, so-called. I don’t even know what that means. And Wenner, great editor that he was, always struck me as a starstruck, self-important jerk.”

Before going any further, I should note that Swamp Rabbit is considerably younger than me, even though he looks like an old bum and sometimes talks like a reactionary. He’s only dimly aware that the era of the rock ‘n’ roll star is over. That the era of great rock ‘n’ roll songs has passed. That the rock ‘n’ roll he grew up with in the 1990s and beyond was, with few exceptions, far less innovative and memorable than the rock ‘n’ roll made in previous decades. No wonder he’s so jaded.

“Do some research,” I said. “It’s no accident that Rolling Stone began declining around the same time that rock ‘n’ roll began losing its cultural relevance.”

“You sound as snooty as Wenner,” Swamp Rabbit replied. “You probably wouldn’t include any Blacks and women on your list of great rockers.”

“Looking back, I’d put Aretha Franklin on my list,” I said. “Chrissie Hynde, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, Grace Slick, Chuck Berry, Jimi effin’ Hendrix, to name a few. It’s partly a question of whether you think soul and funk and other music genres can fit under the rock ‘n’ roll umbrella. Wenner clearly doesn’t.”

Footnote: Wenner could have spared himself a ton of trouble if he’d simply told the NY Times that his interview subjects were chosen because they were his favorite rockers and buddies of his. But he went out of his way to put down Blacks and women because… he’s a jerk.

One more: It seems Wenner forgot what one of the masters wrote: Come gather ’round people wherever you roam/And admit that the waters around you have grown/And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone…