The last time Ethics Alarms discussed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s standards was ten years ago, as I chided a conservative blogger for wanting to block Cat Stevens’ enshrinement on the grounds that during his activist days he qualified as an Islamic radical. Following a common theme here, EA pointed out that when a Hall of Fame mission is to honor artists for their art, no other considerations are relevant. Baseball’s Hall is unusual in that it actually has a character requirement, something that would empty out the Rock and Roll Hall sufficiently to have tumble weeds rolling through the Hall’s halls. So I applauded the RRHOF for admitting Cat, who was worthy, regardless of Cat’s politics.
Now comes the news that Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine and rightfully enshrined in the Hall as a major figure in the business and culture of Rock and Roll, has been kicked off of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s board for comments he made in a New York Times interview. Wenner was speaking to the Times about his upcoming book “The Masters,” which features interviews he conducted with artists like John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and others in the past. Queried about why there are no interviews with female and black artists, Wenner’s ethics alarms broke down entirely and he actually said that the reason was that women and blacks aren’t articulate.
“The people [whose interviews rated inclusion in his book]had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them…Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level…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.”
Yikes.
Not surprisingly, these sentiments sparked massive criticism on social media and elsewhere, and yesterday the Hall announced that Wenner had been removed from its foundation’s board of directors. The day before, having had it pointed out to him that his stupid comments could hurt sales of his book, Wenner apologized, saying, “I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.” But a statement like his, genie-like, cannot be put back in its metaphorical bottle. It was reminiscent of the career-wrecking statement by Dodger executive Al Campainis to Ted Koppel on “Nightline” in 1987 that the reason there were not any black managers in the major leagues was that blacks lacked “the necessities” to do the job.
The Hall of Fame was correct to remove Wenner from its leadership. A board has to represent an organization’s values, and of all places, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame can’t have racial and gender discrimination taking up seats at its table. As a deserving member of the Hall itself, Wenner should be immune from removal for the same reasons Cat Stevens was admitted, but we shall see. I have my doubts.
If he does get kicked out of the Hall too, my position on that was extensively explored here, when Disney removed Bill Cosby’s bust from its Disney’s Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame Plaza.
Ethics Alarms 
Al Campanis came immediately to mind. As did Jimmy the Greek. How long ago was Jimmy the Greek? Must be over forty years ago.
Of course, didn’t our current president refer to Barack Obama as “articulate and well dressed,” or something along those lines, in 2008? Would that he had been cancelled at that time.
Oh, it’s even better than that – the statement and then the prevarications.
https://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/31/biden.obama/
Amazing. Nice research. Thanks.
Good riddance! In any case, a lot of fans have been eager for years to see him go because of his overbearing control of the HoF. Many didn’t like the inclusion of non-rock genres like country and rap. They hated Wenner’s control of selections…excluding artists he didn’t like, like Steppenwolf, while putting in relatively minor (though not necessarily bad) acts like Buffalo Springfield.
Yep. Good riddance, indeed. He is a loathsome individual. He was instrumental in excluding my beloved Rush from the RARHOF for years. A pox on him.
jvb
What he said was cringeworthy and incredibly stupid. I can’t make sense out of what he is even talking about.
I can’t take the Rock and Roll HOF seriously and never have and I applaud the performers who when inducted, gave it the middle finger. The list of acts not in the HOF is a HOF in itself.
What the hell is induction based on? There are no stats to go by. Just a few people deciding, based on what?
For starters – After 30+ years, how the hell is The Guess Who, The Monkees or Jethro Tull not in it?
JL
Good examples. I got disgusted when it took them so long to let in The Zombies.
Having described Jann Wenner as a “narcissistic wanker” on my own blog earlier this year, I now find myself in the uncomfortable position of defending him. Sort of. It is certainly true that when he was at his greatest influence at the RRHF, he could and did blackball worthy artists because he did not like them personally. He’s no loss, in other words. But I’m not sure he should be ousted for ill-chosen remarks in a single interview.
If, as one of my college friends wrote on her Facebook page, he was dispatched because he “said the quiet part out loud,” then sure. But I don’t know that that’s the case. A fair number of women and non-whites were inducted into the Hall on Wenner’s watch. True, there are more white men, but it’s a genre that, rightly or wrongly, has been dominated by white men, especially if we define Rock and Roll as narrowly as I’d like. Ask someone for their list of the ten greatest US presidents, and even the most loyal Obama supporter will name nine white men.
Indeed, whereas it doesn’t take long to compile a list of worthy white male musicians who have not been chosen (a few examples, not counting those already mentioned by other commenters: Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Thin Lizzy, Steppenwolf, Dave Matthews Band, Soundgarden, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Warren Zevon, Dio… ), compiling a list of similarly significant acts who are not largely or exclusively white men comes significantly harder, especially if we exclude genres like rap/hip-hop, funk, etc.
We can hardly disagree with Wenner’s choice of Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, et al.. It’s the omission of some many other possibilities that doesn’t sit right. There are, perhaps, good reasons why Wenner would make the choices he did—he never got a chance to interview someone, or they didn’t handle questions very adroitly (he has just demonstrated how that can happen), or whatever. Arguing for a specific woman or a specific POC over Bono or Pete Townsend is case that can be readily made, but it’s not necessarily a slam dunk. And even Jann Wenner is entitled to his own taste in music. So it’s really not about the choices per se, but rather about the stated defense of those choices, specifically the omissions.
I find it difficult to believe that Wenner would be unable to elicit “articulate” responses from the artists he uses as examples of inarticulateness (Joni Mitchell? Really?), or from Carole King or Stevie Nicks or B.B. King or, indeed, a host of other eminent musicians who don’t/didn’t happen to be white men.
The after-the-fact apology may, in fact, be sincere. Perhaps Wenner was simply inarticulate (to coin a phrase) in his remarks. We’ve all said something that didn’t exactly come out the way we intended. Should he be gone? Yes. Would I say that if I didn’t agree with Willem and JVB, and already despise him long before this week? Probably… but perhaps not.