Collection of Tony Glover's correspondence with Rolling Stone magazine, including seven letters by the magazine's founder Jann Wenner. In three letters from 1968, Wenner recruits Glover to write reviews for Rolling Stone, criticizes his style ("The trouble with your reviews is that they are not really reviews. They are stories about how you listened to the record, what amused you, the various trips it put you on…The first person is a crutch for lazy writers. To the reader it is offensive and boring. Only Norman Mailer is really capable of bringing it off"), then praises a review of Electric Ladyland: "The Hendrix review was good, I understood what you were doing and I think you got it across. The one or two criticisms I have is that in one or two places it was a little too cute."
Interestingly, the later letters are filled with some conflict: in August 1970, Wenner writes, "We would very much like to have a Rolling Stone Interview with Robbie Robertson—about 10,000-12,500 words"; in February 1971, he writes: "I'm sorry if there has been some misunderstanding about the Allman piece and the Robbie Robertson Interview. Simply, the piece wasn't very good…As regards the Robbie Robertson Interview, we also decided to put this in the hands of one of our staff associate editors…If you want to do other things for us, we'd be happy to look at them but on speculation basis only. For instance, a piece on Bob Neuwirth (profile) would certainly be fascinating…However, we will not be making regular assignments to you."
In May 1971, Glover wrote to Rolling Stone to complain about the sloppy editing of his interview with Country Joe McDonald, noting that only one third of the published product was his work; Wenner replies, "I'm very sorry you felt it was shallow and sloppy…The nature of putting together any interview is in fact 'chopping up and shuffling around' but I would like to know what specifically you felt was bad about it." Glover responded with a four-page diatribe, a carbon copy of which is included, detailing his aggravations with Rolling Stone. Replying in September, Wenner addresses the Country Joe interview—"You ought to file the affair under the 'fuck-up' file, not the 'motherfuckers' one…If you want to submit more material, i.e. if you are not totally pissed off at this point, I'll guarantee you to edit them myself and send you all edits for your approval before they appear in type." Glover assembled made photocopies of these letters and assembled them into packets entitled "For Your Eyes Only: The Glover-Wenner Papers, A Continuing Absurdity," three copies of which are included. Also includes fifteen check stubs for payments to Glover for contributions, and a letter from Mick Killingbeck thanking him for a review. In overall very good to fine condition.
From the Tony Glover Collection.
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