Rolling Stone issue #15 had a cover date of August 10, 1968. 24 pages. 35 cents. Cover photo of Mick Jagger by Dean Goodhill.
Features: The Rolling Stones Return With Beggars Banquet by Jann Wenner, featuring tons of great photos by by Dean Goodhill; “Cream Breaks Up”; “Merle Haggard: Home-Fried Humor and Cowboy Soul” by Al Aronowitz [misspelled “Arnowitz”]; “Eric Jacobson in Town with Hybridized Production Trip” by Ben Fong-Torres; “Fiddlin’ in Berkeley” by Charles Perry; “Electronic Roll” by Edmund O. Ward; “The Burning of Los Angeles,” a poem by David Gancher.
News: The Who Does a Full-Length Rock Opera; Fillmore Scene Moves to New Carousel Hall; Nice Not Nice To America; Beatles Declare National Apple Week; KMPX Scabs Pay Their Dues.
Columns: Visuals by Thomas Albright (“Top of the Underground: Reel Humor & Flashes”); “Soul Together” by Jon Landau on a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden for the Martin Luther King Memorial Fund featuring Joe Tex, King Curtis, Sonny and Cher, Sam and Dave, the Rascals, and Aretha Franklin; John J. Rock (aka Jann Wenner) on Jim Morrison’s “rather worn-out and self-conscious stage maneuvers,” Michael Nesmith’s instrumental Wichita Train Whistle (“awful”), and Life magazine’s rock and roll issue (“a disappointment”).
Full-page ads: Tape From California by Phil Ochs on A&M; Limelight Records (an electronic subsidiary of Mercury Records); “Be Me” b/w /”Some Soon, Some Day” single by the Comfortable Chair on Ode Records (produced by Robbie Krieger and John Densmore); Notes from the Underground by Notes from the Underground on Vanguard.
More ads: “This Wheel’s On Fire” single by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and The Trinity on ATCO; The Believers original cast recording on RCA; Deram/London Records (“This is the now music”); ABC Records (“Out of the void ultra sounds!”); “Mr. Bojangles” single by Jerry Jeff Walker on ATCO; Bill Graham Presents Moby Grape and the Jeff Beck Group at the Fillmore Carousel; Specialty Records (“Bogged down with people telling you how to record your thing?”); I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free by Billy Taylor on Tower; Rolling Stone Book (the first fifteen issues, bound, for $9).
Reviews: Music from Big Pink by the Band on Capitol (by Al Kooper); A Man and the Blues by Buddy Guy on Vanguard (by Barry Gifford); Revolution movie soundtrack on United Artists (by Jann Wenner); Fleetwood Mac by Fleetwood Mac on Epic (by Barry Gifford).
Subscription offer: New subscribers could get a free copy of the Grateful Dead’s Anthem of the Sun (with 50 cents for shipping and handling). $6 for 26 issues; $10 for 52.