Surely someone’s asked this before…
How did Rolling Stone magazine get its name?
Did they name it after the band The Rolling Stones?
-Ben
A previous thread which doesn’t answer your question but might short circuit some responses here.
That thread answers it pretty well. Both the band and the magazine took their names from the Muddy Waters song “Rolling Stone”. You know, I have two Muddy Waters albums and neither one has that song. Bummer. I wonder what album it’s on. Hmm, I digress …
As a long-time subscriber, I can answer this one. The RS band got its name from a Muddy Waters song. The magazine (more of a newspaper in the early days) was more firmly linked to the band than to M.W. Mick Jagger was listed on the masthead as an editor or something for the first few months, though he never really worked there. The contents page has always proclaimed “All the news that fits,” a parody of a famous newspaper’s (NY Times?) motto, “All the news that’s fit to print.”
I have no cite, but a friend of mine told me that the magazine got its name as a play off of Rock ‘n’ Roll, as in the original title was Rolling Rock, but they changed it to “Stone” for some reason.
Muddy Waters’ real name was McKinley Morganfield, so that’s the name you see as the author on cover songs.
You could also check out another song he wrote called “Mannish Boy.” Part of the opening sequence when he brags about how big a stud he is, includes the line “I’M a rollin’ stone.” Not sure when it was first recorded but I think the early 50’s. Best version of that song IMHO appears on a Blue Sky record produced by Johnny Winter and Johnny also plays on the albumn. Also IMHO that’s one of the greatest blues albumns ever recorded but it’s a pretty overlooked piece of vinyl.