{"id":43354,"date":"2025-08-08T19:47:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/08\/michael-lydon-founding-rolling-stone-editor-dead-at-82\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T19:47:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:47:07","slug":"michael-lydon-founding-rolling-stone-editor-dead-at-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/08\/michael-lydon-founding-rolling-stone-editor-dead-at-82\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Lydon, Founding ‘Rolling Stone’ Editor, Dead at 82"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tMichael Lydon, a veteran music journalist who served as the original assistant editor of Rolling Stone<\/em> when it ran out of a tiny San Francisco loft by a skeleton staff overseen by co-founder Jann Wenner<\/a>, died on July 30. He was 82.<\/p>\n

\n\tLydon\u2019s wife, Ellen Mandel, confirmed his death to The New York Times<\/a>, <\/em>adding that the cause <\/em>was complications from Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the inaugural issue of Rolling Stone<\/em> hit newsstands on Nov. 6, 1967, an investigative article by Lydon about missing funds from the Monterey Pop festival ran on the first page. \u201cMonths after the Mamas and Papas closed the show early Monday morning, a slightly bad taste still remains,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWhat was a festival to some, was a free ride for others. Most artists got there with talent, some with pull. A festival which should, and could have been all up front still leaves questions asked and unanswered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJann did not want to be just a fanzine,\u201d Lydon told Rolling Stone<\/em> in 2017. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t gonna be all just, \u2018Oh, every star is wonderful and every business deal is beautiful\u2019 and all that. This was the little investigative journalism reportage that Jann wanted. He wanted it in the first issue to say the Matt Taibbi stuff and the whole world of Rolling Stone<\/em>, in a way, comes from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore he met Wenner and joined the original Rolling Stone<\/em> staff, Lydon was a pop music writer for Newsweek<\/em>. In January 1967, he was transferred from the London office to San Francisco, just as the music scene was exploding there thanks to the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, and all the events at the Fillmore.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of the first things that I went to was the Human Be-In,\u201d he said in 2017, referencing the famous 1967 event at San Francisco\u2019s Golden Gate Park, featuring live performances by Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Blue Cheer. \u201cThat was one of the steps that got the whole hippie thing rolling, a gathering of the tribes, as they called it. And I was constantly looking for stories in that field.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tLydon\u2019s memory of exactly when he met Wenner was slightly blurry, but he believed it took place in the press area at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. A few weeks later, Wenner invited him to a coffee house to tell him about his plans to start a new rock magazine. \u201cHe basically said to me, \u2018Esquire<\/em>\u2018s day is over. There\u2019s a new sensibility that needs a point of view. There are really interesting artists to be interviewed. There are social issues to cover,’\u201d Lydon recalled. \u201cHe had the Rolling Stone<\/em> name and logo at that point. Baron Wolman signed up as a staff photographer, and Jann asked me to essentially serve as the Managing Editor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a risky proposition, especially since Lydon had a solid gig with Newsweek<\/em>. But he was exhausted by the grind, and working on articles where he didn\u2019t receive a byline. \u201cAt Newsweek,<\/em> I would write a report from San Francisco, and then that was just raw material for the editor in New York,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019d just work it into his own piece. I was really dissatisfied with that. I wanted my own byline.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRolling Stone<\/em> was a chance to help build something from the ground up, and receive proper credit for his work. And even 50 years after the fact, he was still able to visualize his first days there in the loft on San Francisco\u2019s Brannan Street. \u201cWe worked above a printing press,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there was nothing on the outside that told you it was anything. We entered by the side door and went up a flight of stairs. There was just a classic attic\/loft. It was dusty, hardly anything up there at all. But we had a feeling that this was a tabula rasa, a clean slate. We build it from here, and that was an exciting feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to the Monterey Pop investigation, Lydon wrote a pocket profile of Fifties rock pioneer Bill Haley in the first issue. \u201cI was in Reno doing a piece on an air festival for Newsweek<\/em>,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw that Bill Haley was playing around the corner. And so I just walked over there and got a little story on him. It was just happenstance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tMany of the articles in that first issue ran without a byline, including a report on the Grateful Dead getting busted by narcotics officers at their San Francisco house. \u201cI might have written that,\u201d Lydon said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to put our names on everything because that would show how few people were working for the paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the issue was finally ready, Lydon, Wenner, and much of the staff climbed down to the printing press to watch it emerge from the machines. At first, nothing happened as technicians tightened bolts and adjusted the metal plates. \u201cAll of a sudden, the machine started to go \u2018kabunk, kaubnk, kabunk,’\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd with every \u2018kabunk,\u2019 there was a Rolling Stone<\/em>, still wet. We popped some champagne and toasted it. It was very, very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWithin days, they received feedback from Eric Clapton, John Sebastian, and people from all over the country. And in the weeks that followed, Lydon wrote a brutal takedown<\/a> of Jimi Hendrix\u2019s Get That Feeling<\/em> LP (\u201cThis record is barely representative of what Hendrix is doing now and is an embarrassment to him as a musician\u201d), a profile of Smokey Robinson<\/a> (\u201cSince the Beatles and the Beach Boys dropped out of the single-then-follow-up album pattern aimed at the AM teenage listener, William \u2018Smokey\u2019 Robinson has had the field to himself\u201d), and a feature about rockabilly icon Carl Perkins (\u201cCarl, now 36, his extensive bald spot now covered by a toupee, and his front teeth replaced with a plate\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tBut his time at Rolling Stone<\/em> was relatively brief. \u201cI really wanted to go freelance,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to just work for Jann Wenner. I wanted to write for whoever would buy my articles. I wrote for Rolling Stone<\/em> several times after the Christmas break [of 1967], but I was no longer on staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the early Seventies, Lydon released the book Rock Folk: Portraits from the Rock \u2018N Roll Pantheon<\/em><\/a>, a collection of articles about Chuck Berry, Perkins, Robinson, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and the Rolling Stones. He also started playing folk clubs as a duo with Mandel, whom he married in 1981.<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\u201cAfter years of avid listening, I figured I\u2019d add my voice to pop\u2019s worldwide chorus,\u201d Lydon wrote on his official website. <\/a>\u201cEllen and I made our coffeehouse debut in Berkeley, then started climbing on every stage we could find, one an unpaid San Francisco talent show with Robin Williams. \u2026 We moved to Manhattan, joining all the ambitious kids putting their acts together in the Big Apple. We opened at colleges and rock clubs for Muddy Waters, Manhattan Transfer, and Mose Allison. Ellen started composing for theater; I played for years in the subway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the Nineties, Lydon wrote the book Ray Charles: Man and Music<\/a><\/em>. \u201cMusic\u2019s opened me up to gorgeous sounds and challenging ideas,\u201d he wrote on his site. \u201cIn every note I play, I try to sum up all I\u2019ve heard and send it back as me to anyone who\u2019ll listen. When I get back silly grins from couples dancing to my beat and singing in on the chorus, I thank my inspirations, but I\u2019m also thinking, \u2018Look out world, here comes Michael Lydon!’\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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