Musings of a Pop Cultural Icon: A Talk with Ben Fong-Torres

Due to scheduling conflicts, this program has been rescheduled for Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 12 noon.

Ben Fong-Torres (left) and Art Garfunkel (right) mimic a famous album cover

Join Author & Rock Icon Ben Fong-Torres as he speaks about his illustrious history with the rise of rock n’ roll at the CHSA Museum on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 1 pm.

This is the first Second Saturday of 2012 and the event is free with Museum Admission. Please call (415)391-1188 x101 or email info@chsa.org to RSVP.

Ben Fong-Torres was born in Alameda, California, in 1945, and raised in Oakland’s Chinatown, where his parents owned a restaurant. He attended San Francisco State College from 1962 through 1966, majored in Radio-TV-Film and served as a reporter and editor of the campus daily.

Fong-Torres began writing for Rolling Stone magazine in 1968, in its eighth issue. Prior to that, he had a full-time job at another publication: Pacific Telephone’s employee magazine and by night, he was a volunteer editor at East West, a bilingual Chinatown newspaper. In May, 1969, Ben joined Rolling Stone as news editor. His interview subjects included Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, the Jackson 5, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, the Grateful Dead, and Ike & Tina Turner.

He was the host of KQED-FM’s live, weekly arts show, Fog City Radio, and has co-anchored KTVU-TV’s coverage of the Chinese New Year Parades since 1997. He and co-anchor Julie Haener have won three Emmys. Ben left Rolling Stone in 1981 and has since written for dozens of magazines, including Esquire, GQ, Parade, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Travel & Leisure, American Film, TV Guide, and Harper’s Bazaar.

In 1983, Fong-Torres joined the San Francisco Chronicle, where he was a feature writer and radio columnist and where he continues to write the Radio Waves column on Sunday. He is also a prolific published author, including his memoirs The Rice Room: From Number Two Son to Rock and Roll (1994), Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock & Roll (1999), which was followed by a second collection, Becoming Almost Famous, in 2006. He wrote The Doors by the Doors (2007), Grateful Dead Scrapbook (2009), and Eagles: Taking It to the Limit (2011).  He contributes articles to AsianConnections.com and writes a regular music blog at Wolfgang’s Vault’s site. He is a real-life character in Almost Famous, the 2000 film by Cameron Crowe.