CLEVELAND, Ohio – Since it was established in 1983, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner have been synonymous with each other. But that relationship will come to an end next year.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation announced Wednesday that Wenner will step down as chairman of the New York-based institution, which handles the annual induction process.
Wenner co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, helping recruit architect I.M. Pei to build the museum in Cleveland. Wenner co-hosted the first Rock Hall Ceremony with legendary music industry figure Ahmet Ertegun at New York’s Waldorf Astoria in 1986.
Wenner took over as chairman of the Rock Hall Foundation after Ertegun died in 2006. Current board member John Sykes, President of Entertainment Enterprises for iHeartMedia, will take over for Wenner.
“I was a lucky man to be given this once in a lifetime mission to honor the history of the music I love,” Wenner said, in a statement. “I am delighted to have John Sykes to take over.”
“Jann Wenner is a cultural legend,” added Sykes. “It’s an honor to serve the foundation in this new capacity, and to build on Jann’s legacy.”
Wenner founded Rolling Stone in 1967. His company, Wenner Media sold its controlling share in the magazine to Penske Media in 2017. But Wenner still serves as editorial director.
His impact on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can’t be overstated, often taken on mythological proportions. He was the first face fans saw at the annual Induction Ceremony for several years.
“A long time ago, when no one was thinking about our music and its posterity, Jann saw that we needed a place to celebrate popular music and recognize the people who had made the music grow,” said Mick Jagger, in a statement. “It was a visionary idea and he stuck with it.”
Wenner has been out of the public eye since the sale of Rolling Stone. In 2017, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum opened “Rolling Stone/50 Years,” an exhibit honoring the 50th anniversary of the iconic magazine.
However, that same year, investigative reporter Joe Hagan published “Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine.” Hagan, who scored interviews with Jagger, Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney, among others, details Wenner’s professional and personal life, including sexual exploits with men and women, narcissism, drug use and an obsession with celebrity.
Wenner released a statement calling the book “deeply flawed and tawdry” following a falling out with Hagan. The Rock Hall even canceled an appearance by Hagan to promote the book at the museum.
Still, Hagan’s book hasn’t shifted some of music’s biggest names from praising Wenner, whose legacy in establishing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is solidified.
"Jann is always the man with a vision and he had a great one for the Hall of Fame,” said Bruce Springsteen. “He built a beautiful and credible home for our history and deserves our appreciation and respect for this tremendous accomplishment.”
For many years, Wenner was the man many Clevelanders loved to hate, blaming him for keeping the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions out of Cleveland on a more regular basis. Wenner has admitted that his relationship with Cleveland museum and civic officials was strained in the early years, especially as the institution was being designed and and built.
"At the beginning it was rough," Wenner said in a 2017 interview to promote the opening of the "Rolling Stone / 50 Years" exhibition at the Rock Hall. “Everybody was trying to do something nobody had tried to do before. It was a learning process. And mistakes were being made. And people were dropping the ball on both sides of the thing. It was just frustrating and led to a lot of frustrating relationships.
“But it just kept continually improving and getting better and better. It's a people thing. We have good people now on both ends who really like to work together, who travel and visit with each other. Too often in the beginning, it was about two separate organizations competing with each other and then neglecting each other. But we got it right and works fantastic now."
Wenner said those tensions began to fade starting in 1997 when the first induction ceremony was held in Cleveland. They really began to dissipate in the early 2000s when he worked closely with museum and civic leaders to bring the induction ceremonies here on a regular basis starting in 2009.
The inductions are coming back to Cleveland next year. It will be the sixth time they have been held here. The others were 1997 at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, and 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018 at Public Hall.
Wenner insisted he was never a Cleveland hater. In fact, he said prefers it when the inductions are held here.
"I love doing it in Cleveland,” he said in 2017. "It's really honestly more fun than doing it here in New York. It's more intimate. It's more special. And there is such energy in that room and energy in the city.
“"'The ’97 inductions were OK," he said. "Not great, but OK. "But I was always fine about going back to Cleveland. It was always about the practicality of putting it on there and raising the money necessary to do it. Once the Public Hall became available and we did the 2009 induction there, it was stunning how good it was. It was the right room. The enthusiasm of the city for this translated into enthusiasm for the event. It really was exciting and energetic. And at that moment, it occurred to me that we should do this as much as possible in Cleveland.”