For decades, the magazine Rolling Stone was the publication to go to for rock’n’roll news, interviews and updates. With a circulation of more than a million readers, it reaches a wide audience of avid music lovers. Tonight at 7:30 p.m., former Rolling Stone Senior Editor Parke Puterbaugh will be speaking about rock’n’roll music in Yeager Recital Hall.

Puterbaugh worked with Rolling Stone for 25 years. He has also held a key role with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a copywriter and curator since 1986, and has written numerous books ranging in topics from the music and culture of the 1960s to a volume on wetlands for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Based on the title of his lecture, “Rock’n’Roll is Dead and We Just Don’t Know It Yet,” Puterbaugh’s idea of rock’n’roll’s future may be a little bleak. However, as a prominent figure in the music community and considering his experience with Rolling Stone,

Students with any mild interest in rock‘n’roll music should find the lecture appealing.

Music enthusiast and sophomore Kyle Davidson agreed that rock’n’roll is dead “probably in the sense that Puterbaugh is saying. Rock’n’roll as it was when it started doesn’t really exist anymore today. You can hear bits and pieces of it in music we have today, but really, the sound and the feeling of the music doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Rock‘n’roll as a cultural movement is dead, but as a musical genre it’s doing well,” Morgan Little said. “As the styles change and the messages change, the sound changes too. But you can listen to a band still and know that they are rock’n’roll. You can just feel it in your bones.”

Reporter: David Koontz - 10/10/07