Not Fade Away

by Ben Fong-Torres

From 1969 to 1981, Ben Fong-Torres was one of the first “star” writers on staff at Rolling Stone – the “scruffy rock journal” that metamorphosed into one of the most powerful voices of a generation. Now in this fascinating book, Fong-Torres revisits his most intriguing celebrity interviews and profiles, and – for the first time – tells the revealing stories behind the stories, the stars, his writing process, and life at Rolling Stone .

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Journalism, Rock N Roll, History

354 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Benjamin Fong-Torres (Fāng Zhènháo) is an American rock journalist, author, and broadcaster best known for his association with Rolling Stone magazine (through 1981) and the San Francisco Chronicle (from around 1982).

Due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Fong-Torres' father, Ricardo Fong-Torres (born Fong Kwok Seung), changed his surname to Torres and posed as a Filipino citizen in order to emigrate to the United States. His family later adopted the hyphenated surname, Fong-Torres. He is the brother of Shirley Fong-Torres.

He was portrayed in the 2000 film Almost Famous by actor Terry Chen. The fictional version of Fong-Torres was character William Miller's editor at Rolling Stone.

In real life, Fong-Torres was a writer and senior editor of Rolling Stone from almost the magazine's inception. He conducted interviews for Rolling Stone of entertainment figures including Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, comedian Steve Martin and Linda Ronstadt's first cover story in 1975. A Fong-Torres interview with Ray Charles was awarded the Deems Taylor Award for Magazine Writing in 1974.

Fong-Torres was also a rock DJ for San Francisco radio station KSAN-FM in the 1970s. On television, he is the Emmy Award-winning co-anchor of the Chinese New Year Parade broadcast on KTVU (Fox) in San Francisco. In recent years, he has published Hickory Wind, a biography of Gram Parsons; The Rice Room, a memoir; The Hits Just Keep on Coming, a history of Top 40 radio, and two compilations of past articles, Not Fade Away and Becoming Almost Famous (published in May 2006). His book with The Doors (The Doors By The Doors) was published by Hyperion in November 2006. Since July 2005, he has written the bi-weekly column "Radio Waves" in the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday Datebook. He is also a contributing editor to Parade magazine, and the music editor for TONEAudio, a web-based audio publication. He is now the host of "Backstage" which is aired from 7-9 am and 7-9 pm on San Francisco's KFRC-FM.

Reviews

[Clay Kallam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben Fong-Torres is one of the important chroniclers of the rise of rock and roll. He was there at the start, at Rolling Stone, and this collection of interviews is a fascinating look at how musicians such as Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and others were perceived at the time. From the perspective of 2021, of course, things look much different, as an interview with Three Dog Night seems greatly out of place when juxtaposed with the Rolling Stones and Elton John.

Still, Fong-Torres is a skilled writer, and his grasp of the music shows in his approach to the interviews, which though not necessarily revelatory, are far from hagiography. Some, of course, are better than others, but almost all are worth reading to those who grew up with the music of people like Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell.

It's also an excellent book to sip from, reading an interview now and again, or dipping into the table of contents when an old rocker hits today's headlines. And for those of us who were critics at the time, it's amazing how well Fong-Torres' insights still ring true, and are still fun to read.

[Rahadyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this chronicle of Ben Fong-Torres' writing career, which I read a couple of years after I'd seen Almost Famous, one of my two favorite films of 2000 (the other being High Fidelity).

[JW · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of articles, mostly about musicians, most of which were originally published in ROLLING STONE. The pieces are written in a just-the facts style. It’s in his comments before and after the reprints that Fong-Torres reveals his personality: as a likeable guy who was able to turn his love of pop music into a profession.
The artist profiles are mainly of historical interest now. Of especial interest was a portrait of the Jackson 5 before they became the Michael Jackson Band. In another chapter, Marvin Gaye babbles through a lengthy interview. Sly Stone is captured on the edge of the precipice. Meanwhile, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young squabble and make-up. In other words, a book for Classic Rock fans. There’s also a good interview with Steve Martin.

[Eric Atienza · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this when I first started doing a LOT of writing about music and it certainly changed the way I looked at writing those articles. I came from a journalism background (with a decent amount of experience writing news stories, but hardly any at writing features) so it was incredibly interesting to see how he wrote interesting pieces, sometimes inserting himself into the narrative, latching on to certain facets of experience to tell really honest and relateable stories.

[David Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock & Roll by Ben Fong-Torres (Miller Freeman Books 1999)(781.66). Author Ben Fong-Torres was a West Coast writer for Rolling Stone in the 1970's and 1980's.  This is a collection of his work while at the magazine. My rating: 7/10, finished 10/1/2010.

[David Hack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes, this is the Ben Fong-Torres who is a character in the movie Almost Famous.

[Todd · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I wanted to read stories from Rolling Stone, I would have gotten old issues of Rolling Stone. There was very little in extra insight as far as I was concerned.

Really, nothing new here.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in the writing. I used to really enjoy the author's Rolling Stone articles (way back in the day), but found this compilation to be more egotistical than entertaining.

[Jennell McHugh]

Dug his pre/post on each piece shared, and the interview with Rodney Dangerfield.

[Monty Orrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost fifty years after most of these reviews appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, it’s a little hard to believe the musicians profiled here really carried that much weight, but they did. In the age just before computers and iPhones, the ordinary person had a record collection and a stereo. Flipping through a friend’s collection, you might see Crosby Stills & Nash, Stevie Winder, Marvin Gaye, Elton John, Santana. That is, if your friend was really hip. If she was, she probably read Rolling Stone magazine too.

Insert Ben Fong-Torres one of the main writers for Rolling Stone magazine in the 70s. What he did was elevate a musical artist to a level equal to if not exceeding, any popular figure of the day. It got to this level for several reasons. First, the music deserved it. It was really good. Try the Apple Music playlist, “Hits from 1974” or any year between 1965 and 1985. Just listen. The songs are still powerful. And the albums on which these hits were contained were often whole artistic statements. Second, this kind of magazine journalism had taken a turn toward deeper analysis and personality profiles of a subject that previously had been superficial and written by record company hacks.

Many of the pieces in this book are really good and deep, giving a glimpse into what some incredibly gifted musicians were doing at the time and, more importantly, what they were like as people seen in a snapshot. Fong-Torres like fellow Rolling Stone writer, Hunter Thompson in his political reviews for the magazine, would follow their subject around for a few days doing interviews here and there, watching them work and interact then write a piece about them, like a slice of life. Thompson wrote as much about himself and his Gonzo nature as story subject; thus creating the New Journalism school we recognize today. The book compiling his articles for Rolling Stone and the other sporting journals he wrote for over the years is rounded up in “The Great Shark Hunt”. That’s one Thompson’s best with great writing throughout. BFT’s was not on that level, but in profiling some of the people in his stories (including Thompson), we get a glimpse into who they were. That’s all this book aspires to. The writing fits it. Mission accomplished.

Every story in Note Fade Away is not great. Some are—particularly the early ones that stretch a little longer and go deeply into the artist’s life and work—like Jim Morrison, Janis, Sly Stone, the Jackson 5 and Michael in his youth. “World’s Greatest Heartbreaker” about Ike and Tina Turner in their heyday is especially good in showing Ike’s dangerous tendencies and Tina’s plight. If you liked the movie, you might enjoy this even more. It is real and good writing too. The stories about Ray Charles and James Brown also revealed each man’s personality on the inside. Ray was a gentle, sweet person—more than a Genius. J.B was a genius, but an egomaniac who treated people poorly.

So if you’re really into music from the 60s and 70s and wonder about the creative geniuses behind it, this book should satisfy.

-Monty Orrick
December 2025

[Jeremy Walton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm gonna tell you how it's gonna be...
I read and enjoyed the author's Becoming Almost Famous earlier this year, so was pleased to receive this earlier anthology of his writing as a birthday present following some explicitly unambiguous hints to my family. Fong-Torres is probably best-known for writing about music in Rolling Stone from 1968 onwards (and being portrayed in that capacity in the excellent Almost Famous ), and a generous selection of these articles and interviews form the bulk of this collection. They provide a nice snapshot of the American musical scene in the 1970's, taking in luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and Santana, together with other artists such as Three Dog Night whose influence and importance has perhaps not been so enduring.

I found all these interviews interesting, particularly those which highlighted artists - such as Bonnie Riatt, Linda Ronstadt and Marvin Gaye - that I didn't know much about. In addition, there's a fascinating piece on Dick Clark (of American Bandstand fame) which follows his lengthy career in music and media, together with later interviews with subjects further afield; these include Diane Keaton, Rodney Dangerfield (of whom I was completely ignorant), Tom Hanks and Eddie Murphy. The author has an unforced, experienced style which makes his writing easy to read; I'd recommend this collection to anyone who wanted to know more about what was happening in music at that time and in that place, from an eye-witness who was in the thick of things.

Originally reviewed 27 October 2015

[Nathan Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

The biggest thing I gleaned from this very enjoyable compilation of Fong-Torres' journalism (ranging from 1969 to 1989) is how good a magazine Rolling Stone was in its first decade: hard-hitting, informative and well-written when it was actually aligned with the zeitgeist, a distinction it lost pretty much as soon as punk and disco became the dominant narratives of youth music culture. But compared to most after-the-fact history readings about the classic rock era, Fong-Torres' in-the-moment journalism is at times a revelation, especially when he bears witness to George Harrison's disastrous 1974 U.S. tour, for instance, or hobnobbing with Stevie Wonder at the earliest days of his career, or spotting the troubling undercurrent of Ike & Tina Turner's marriage. The book makes you feel extremely present; strangely, the '80s material comes across as much more dated since much of it was quickie journalism crafted for the San Francisco Chronicle. But on the whole it's an enjoyable document of a specific time and place, and Fong-Torres' voice comes through well.