The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation announced today that its co-founder Jann Wenner will step down as Chairman of the Board on January 1st. Wenner plans to remain on the Board of Directors, but the Chair position will be filled by iHeartMedia President John Sykes.

Along with Ahmet Ertegun, Jann Wenner is responsible for creating the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an institution and for spearheading the campaign to create a Museum. Those accomplishments are monumental feats and should be applauded. Mick Jagger provided this statement: “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. It was a visionary idea and he stuck with it.” The positive impact the Rock Hall has had on Cleveland culturally and economically (over $2 billion since it started) is incredible. It is fitting that Wenner is himself an inductee in the Hall of Fame he birthed. But as Ben Sisario wrote for the New York Times, Wenner “became more associated with the institution than any other figure — becoming its top negotiator in the industry, as well as the person blamed, fairly or unfairly, for its shortcomings.”

Wenner was long believed to be the Rock Hall’s primary gatekeeper, keeping out any artists he felt unworthy. Wenner’s biographer, Joe Hagan reinforced this notion in a Billboard interview:

To me the real takeaway is that everybody believes Jann has his thumb on the scale when it comes to who gets into the Hall of Fame. And that Jann doesn't go out of his way to disabuse people of that. The biggest red flag, I suppose, is that many people campaign to Jann for their artist to get into the Hall of Fame, because they believe that if Jann would like that artist to be in the Hall of Fame, it will happen.

Hagan also talked to Cleveland.com’s Troy Smith about how Wenner enjoyed his powerful role:

Ric Ocasek was at the concert, too, trying to butter Jann up about the Cars getting in the Rock Hall. Everyone goes to kiss the ring, because they think Jann runs the thing. The Rock Hall is meaningful to people. Jann obviously has a big influence on this thing and I think he has always enjoyed having these people lavish him with attention and campaign for it.

Over the years, many of the artists Wenner had been rumored to be responsible for keeping out were eventually inducted (Rush, KISS, Chicago, Quincy Jones, the Moody Blues), but there remain others who still think they are blackballed (the Monkees, Toto, Ted Nugent, the Guess Who).

The most notorious case of Wenner putting his “thumb on the scale” is the 2007 induction of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. As Roger Friedman reported at the time*:

According to sources knowledgeable about the mysterious ways of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, British Invasion group The Dave Clark Five and not Grandmaster Flash finished fifth in the final voting of the nominating committee and should have been inducted on Monday night.

According to sources, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, who recently appointed himself chairman of the Foundation after the death of Ahmet Ertegun, ignored the final voting and chose Grandmaster Flash over the DC5 for this year's ceremony.

”Jann went back to a previous ballot instead of taking the final vote as the last word," my source insisted. "He used a technicality about the day votes were due in. In reality, The Dave Clark Five got six more votes than Grandmaster Flash. But he felt we couldn't go another year without a rap act.”

R.E.M., Van Halen, The Ronettes and Patti Smith were the top four vote-getters, with Grandmaster Flash finishing fifth when the votes were counted on the first date ballots were due in to the Rock Hall office.

But when all the ballots were counted a few days later, the DC5 had pulled ahead. Wenner decided to ignore that and stick with the earlier tally.

According to Friedman, after the controversy became public, Wenner had to meet with Dave Clark and guaranteed their induction the following year. Sadly, DC5 singer Mike Smith died 11 days before the 2008 induction ceremony.

Former Nominating Committee member Joel Selvin also alleged Wenner manipulated the process to get the Paul Butterfield Blues Band inducted. Wenner had previously mentioned them as a priority.

For his part, Wenner has consistently denied any wrongdoing, telling Rob Tannenbaum in 2015, “I understand the basis of [the conspiracy theories], but I don’t care about the speculation. After doing this for 30 years, nobody’s ever found any credible charge of chicanery or undue influence.”

The Rock Hall has come under fire over the years about its induction process and its lack of racial and gender diversity in its Hall of Fame classes. Wenner dismissed that criticism today, “I don’t think that’s a real issue. People are inducted for their achievements. Musical achievements have got to be race-neutral and gender-neutral in terms of judging them.”

The Jann Wenner chapter in the story of the Rock Hall may be coming to a close this year, but a full accounting of his legacy has yet to be written.