Rolling Stone began in November 1967, with a photo of John Lennon on the first page and a subscription offer that included a roach clip. In his biography of its founder, Jann Wenner, Joe Hagan writes that the first issue “arrived on newsstands like a handshake”. When he launched the magazine, Wenner was a 21-year-old striver, a dropout from the University of California, Berkeley. Annie Leibovitz’s famous Rolling Stone cover from 22 January 1981 shows John Lennon and Yoko Ono, hours before Lennon died. Rolling Stone may soon be just another defunct symbol of the history it celebrated.

Source: The Guardian November 25, 2017 09:00 UTC