Across the street from Martha & Bros. Coffee Co. in Noe Valley — just 18 miles from his childhood home in Oakland — Ben Fong-Torres sits in a squeaky metal chair. He’s sipping a large coffee and has a slice of quiche in a pastry bag that he’ll take home for his wife. The barista, who took his order moments earlier, has no idea who she’s just served — but Fong-Torres doesn’t care. 

“I’m fine that people are saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I know you from — and it’s either Rolling Stone or ‘Almost Famous,’” said Fong-Torres, who had a front-row seat to the rise of ‘60s pop culture’s intersection with rock ’n’ roll.

Few can truly say they were there. Ben Fong-Torres can. A Bay Area native, SF State alum and architect of American rock journalism, Fong-Torres joined Rolling Stone at its start around 1968, chronicling how music, politics and everyday life intertwined.

It is hard to overstate Fong-Torres’ impact on the American rock scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s; he shaped how Americans understood a generation of emerging icons, introducing Rolling Stone readers to Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, and countless others who still dominate our playlists today.

Becoming Ben Fong-Torres

Fresh out of college, Fong-Torres thought he had it all mapped out: work at the Pacific Telephone employee magazine; volunteer as an editor for East West, a bilingual Chinatown newspaper; and do some radio. But in the moments to himself, Fong-Torres sifted through Rolling Stone — then a lo-fi publication on newsprint. He had no idea he’d write for the same publication later that decade. 

By 1969 Fong-Torres was sitting in the Brannan Street loft in San Francisco — aka the office — of Rolling Stone with co-founder Jann Wenner. “I may not be a musicologist or a musician,” Fong-Torres told Wenner, “but, boy, you name me a song, I can tell you what year it was a hit, what the label was, who the performers were and in numerous genres of music.”

Fong-Torres credits his knowledge in music for helping him land the job. At the time, Managing Editor John Burks — another SF State alum who later served as interim chair of the journalism department — also vouched for his credibility.

Fong-Torres’ love of music started at an early age — far before writing or traveling with the superstars he listened to as a kid. 

“[Music] was my salvation,” said Fong-Torres. 

While peeling prawns and folding wontons in his family’s Hayward restaurant, The Bamboo Hut, he listened to Ray Charles, James Brown and the Beach Boys on the radio. That music echoed through to a young Fong-Torres, who awaited the day when he could pursue life on his own terms. By 1973, he had profiled Charles, which won the Deems Taylor Award for Magazine Writing in 1974.

“All that music helped to save me,” Fong-Torres said.

After a year of freelancing for Rolling Stone, Fong-Torres became associate editor for the magazine in 1969. Eventually, he became the news editor and around 1973, a senior editor.

Fong-Torres’ connection with Rolling Stone — described by Peter Richardson, SF State lecturer and author of the 2025 book “Brand New Beat: Rolling Stone Magazine and the San Francisco Counterculture,” as “one of the most important American magazine[s]  at that period” — lasted until 1981. 

Where we were then and where we are now

During the counterculture movement, to understand the meaning behind the music, the political context of the time needed to be understood as well. Fong-Torres’ writing for Rolling Stone did both.

He believes protest music endures, carrying the same themes Bob Dylan and Joan Baez voiced six decades ago. What has changed is the stage: once a widespread social movement, it now lives in indie spaces and spreads largely through social media.

Fong-Torres describes the politics and music of the ‘60s as a “novel thing,” saying, “It was such a phenomenal thing that it jolted people, and not just fans, but also media and corporations.”

Today, protest messages and entertainment that once grabbed people’s attention in the ‘60s seems to drift in and out of public view.

“It’s not an accident that the quality of the product [music] lost its hold on the culture,” explained Joel Selvin, former senior pop music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. “It became like soap instead of something that was coming out of the culture organically. It was now being produced by corporations.”

Selvin reflects on the music from the ‘60s that was developed by what he calls, “independent-minded visionaries” — those individuals who were a part of small record labels and “accurately related to their audience.” This theme of independence, he shared, changed in the late ‘70s when corporations took control of  independent labels and began applying corporate marketing methods. Music “was no longer the province of these tough-minded visionaries who were following their own instincts,” said Selvin.

The political energy swirling through the air in the ‘60s parallels similar themes to American culture today. 

Dennis McNally, former publicist of the band Grateful Dead, explained, “There’s a straight through line from Reagan to Trump in terms of a Republican Party that’s increasingly right-wing and concerned about cultural issues, and therefore, very anti-‘60s — and that’s exactly what is going on now.” 

The “Oasis” 

The great fortune that followed Fong-Torres throughout his career was partly defined by him stumbling on recurring, “islands” of freedom. 

He credits The Daily Gater for giving him his first sense of freedom. From 1964 to 1966, he recalls feeling an independence rare among other campus publications of the time, especially in the support from his faculty advisers.  

“When we wanted advice, they were there,” said Fong-Torres. “Otherwise, they pretty much left us alone until we really screwed up.” Though he mentioned “the oral sex headline,”  he decided not to elaborate. 

Not long after his time at The Gater, Fong-Torres landed at Rolling Stone, another island of freedom.“We were on a kind of an oasis,” explained Fong-Torres.

According to Richardson, the non-traditional publication that was Rolling Stone didn’t compare to how the rest of the media was covering topics like counterculture. Wenner and co-founder Ralph Gleason had set out to redefine music coverage and their efforts made space for new ideas.

“Rolling Stone was unlike any existing publication,” said Fong-Torres, “and we were on our own. We were not owned by any company or corporation. It was just Jann Wenner — this kid one year younger than me — and his idea.”

Fong-Torres being the only Asian American in the newsroom set him apart from a white-dominated industry. It’s one reason that granted him freedom to reach artists and their authenticity.

“Some people were willing to talk only to him,” Richardson said.

Fong-Torres describes — in his best Bob Dylan impression — when he finally convinced Dylan to agree to an interview while on his 1974 tour, that moment in music history when so-called Dylanologists were digging through the artist’s trash cans. In Dylan’s Toronto hotel room, Fong-Torres scribbled furiously in his notebook, to keep pace with the singer’s words after Dylan refused to let him use a tape recorder.

According to Selvin, Fong-Torres “was sitting at the top of the rock heap journalistically speaking … People just opened their doors to him … He could get inside a story and make it come alive.” 

Fong-Torres recalls interviewing Marvin Gaye and discovering the deep imposter syndrome that haunted the superstar behind the spotlight. “He is the most insecure guy that I had ever run across, and it gave me the notion that what I was covering a lot were extraordinary people who felt like they were fakes … or feared failure,” said Fong-Torres. 

“Rolling Stone, when it started,” explained Richardson, “it was not just a rock magazine, it was the best rock magazine … but it was always more than that: it was always about the whole counterculture and its music … and Ben was a very important part of that.” 

It all circles back

Fifty-nine years later and Fong-Torres, still in San Francisco and living just a few miles from campus, still has stories to share. “It’s full circle, but it’s one of a number of things that are full circle — staying in your home area tends to open the doors to life coincidences, and what goes around comes around. SF State is one of them.”

Gallery • 2 Photos

Ben Fong-Torres is an alum of SF State and shows pride in his alma mater by wearing merchandise from the university. (Braelyn Furse / Xpress Magazine)