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Any Baby Boomer worth his salt can identify every face that appears on the glitzy, 3-D, faux-“Sgt. Pepper’s” cover art of Rolling Stone’s 1,000th issue, which is now available on newsstands for the reasonable price of $5.95.

If you’ve been a faithful reader of the magazine, you’ll want to stash this issue away for your grandkids. If you’ve never held RS in your hands, you’ll want to pick up RS 1000 to see what you’ve missed. And you’ve missed a lot.

I wasn’t smart enough to grab RS 1 with the cover photo of John Lennon incongruently chapeaued in a World War II steel helmet, but it wasn’t long after the premiere issue appeared in 1967 that I discovered RS on a newsstand in Graham, of all places. And like many of my generation, I’ve been a RS reader ever since.

Which is remarkable when you consider how tastes in music have changed over the last 38 years. I can no longer abide MTV with its rap violence and sleazy sexuality, but I never pass up the chance to read RS, which, I swear, never disappoints.

The best article written about United Flight 93 — it was, in fact, the best article I’ve read in the last 20 years — appeared in the pages of RS. Concise, riveting, well-researched, compassionate, terse, bone-chilling — the article captured the terror of that doomed flight with an unnerving immediacy.

The best interview I ever read, a lengthy piece published in the late-1960s featuring the bluff voice of Janice Joplin, also appeared in the pages of RS.

And, of course, Hunter S. Thompson’s series, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was first published in RS. Although overrated, Thompson’s articles did more to shape the thinking of a generation than any other single drug-induced diatribe published in America in the 20th century.

After almost 40 years, RS’s ability to capture consistently the mood of the hipper segment of the American demographic is astonishing. The magazine sells about 1.3 million copies each month, and that figure has remained constant for the last 10 years. When musical or popular trends change, RS simply oozes à la mode.

Be advised, however, that the 1,000th issued is, by and large, about RS’s cover art. The magazine learned early on how to attract readers with a cover that would stop the casual browser dead in his or her tracks.

John Lennon has appeared on the cover more than any other artist, sometimes with Yoko Ono but always with a brazenness that attracted readers. Who can forget the Nov. 23, 1968, issue with John’s and Yoko’s not-too-appealing derrieres mooning America?

In addition to pop stars, many prominent politicians have graced the cover — George McGovern, Richard Nixon, Teddy Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, George Bush, always accompanied by a revealing interview. And though the magazine caters to a liberal clientele, its politics have remained balanced and moderate.

So who is on the cover of the 1,000th issue? Here we go: Bart Simpson, Jack Nicholson, Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Cobain, Darth Vader, Ozzy Osbourne, Sam Cooke, Walter Cronkite, Debbie Harry, Otis Redding, Sinead O’Connor, Bo Diddley, Van Morrison, James Dean, Jane Fonda, William S. Borroughs, Pete Seeger, Tom Petty, Tom Wolfe, Marilyn Manson, Snoop Dog, Jack Kerouac, Steven Spielberg, Marlon Brando, David Byren, Diana Ross, Bill Murray, Buddy Holly, Muddy Waters, Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen, Brian Wilson, Howard Stern, Johnny Rotten, Lou Reed, Britney Spears, Sid Vicious, Linda Ronstadt, Nelson Mandela, Paul Simon, Elvis Presley, 50 Cent, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and more than a hundred other luminaries.

So pick up a copy of RS 1,000. Like Captain Hook sings: “Wanna see my picture on the cover/Wanna buy five copies for my mother/Wanna see my smilin’ face/On the cover the cover of the Rollin’ Stone….”.

Stephen Smith can be reached at travisses@hotmail.com.