Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution is an informative exhibition on legendary rock promoter Bill Graham now touring across the country. The exhibit includes Jerry Garcia’s wolf guitar, original Fillmore poster art, photographs, costumes, Joshua Light Show installation, memorabilia, and more. Following a residency at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, it will move to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco March 10-June 12, 2016. After that it will travel to Chicago, New York, and Cleveland. The following piece was inspired by the exhibit, with a special thanks to curator Erin Clancey and liaison Laura Cohen.
Many are familiar with legendary acts like the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and Santana. What about the man behind the curtain? Bill Graham was the concert promoter that made many of the budding counterculture acts come to fruition. Yet before bands of the flower power era took off, they were playing in living rooms, performing in parks, and rehearsing in warehouse lofts. All the musical key holders to the psychedelic movement were ready for a door.
The scene began to blossom in the sixties with happenings like the Acid Tests, which were early experimental concerts featuring the Grateful Dead. They danced their way on the ‘magic bus’ into the ether of psychedelia, unknowingly about to blast off into kaleidoscopic waves of superstardom. As these merry bands of weirdos were jamming their early grooves, Bill Graham was also sorting out his place in the world. He was young, driven, but the road unclear.
Over time Graham built his Fillmore legacy, which included legendary concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium & Fillmore West in San Francisco, and the Fillmore East in New York City. Graham put the Grateful Dead on the bill more than any other band, playing over 43 concerts from 1968-71 alone. His careers as an established promoter via the self-entitled Bill Graham Presents became the road, and the musical key holders were granted the door they needed.
Before his arrival in America, Bill Graham was a young Jewish refugee, fleeing persecution from a war-stricken Germany. When the war struck he was separated from his family, and sent to a quasi-orphanage in Paris. In the middle of the night, Bill would escape out the window to collect red apples from the nearby orchards. He would bring them back to the other boys so they wouldn’t starve. Later in his life as a concert promoter, Bill Graham would leave barrels filled with red apples at the doors of the Fillmore. There was a sign which read, Take one, or two. Both a symbol from his past and his character, the apples were Bill’s way of making people feel comfortable. Bill was known for running a tight concert operation, but he always cared about the bands and the fans he put on shows for. Amidst the chaos of rock & roll, Bill kept it all together.
On September 24, 1941 Bill arrived in New York City. He was just ten years old. Once in New York City, Bill was taken in by a family who wanted Bill to tutor their child in German. He was the last one to be taken from the orphanage, and the family never formally adopted him. His foster brother taught him English, and one day Bill picked up a Bronx phone book, landed on the last name Graham, and never looked back. As his life in New York was beginning, the war brewed on. His mother died on a train to Auschwitz concentration camp, and one of his sisters died inside. Two of his sisters escaped, and made it, to San Francisco.
After hitchhiking back and forth from New York to San Francisco, Bill landed in the Bay. Acting did not work out and straight business did not satisfy him so he wanted to try something new. He decided to manage a radical theatre group called the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Soon he produced a concert in the park featuring performances by the mime troupe and bands like Jefferson Airplane, Great Society, and The Fugs, who rehearsed in the same loft as the troupe.
The radical countercultural community in San Francisco was woven pretty well together. One thread easily connected one person or band to another. There was potential for all these pieces to form a truly groovy puzzle, and Bill Graham saw that. He saw an instant bond, a community that came together, had a good time, and danced with strangers. When Bill noticed the music was the top interest, he too focused on that in his productions.
In 1966 came the Trips Festival. Ken Kesey produced the fest with some other friends, which featured music of the Grateful Dead, beat poetry of Allen Ginsberg, and a massive slew of experimental projections and happenings. Kesey asked Graham to help work the event. Graham was surely the only one running around with a clipboard, trying to bring order to the chaos that was a homegrown acid-lovers music festival. During the festival, Graham approached Kesey, who at the time was wearing a space suit made by Mountain Girl (Carolyn Garcia). When Graham told him to stop letting people in for free, Kesey flipped down the visor of his space suit, did not say a word, and kept the floodgates open.
When it came time for the Grateful Dead to play, Jerry Garcia was nowhere to be found. A little too much Kool-Aid, and Jerry forgot he had to play. So, Bill amplifies a message on the overhead projector that reads, “Jerry Garcia plug in!” Upon reaching the stage Jerry discovered his guitar had been smashed to pieces. He watched as Bill Graham got down on his knees, attempting to piece the guitar back together with his bare hands so Jerry could play. In this moment it is said that Jerry proverbially ‘recognized’ and loved Graham. From here the bond blossomed and Bill Graham put the Grateful Dead on at the Fillmore more than any other act.
Bill Graham as Father Time on New Year’s Eve 1988
In the early days of the Fillmore Auditorium, Graham did not even have his own permit for the venue. He got his start using the dancehall permit of African American entrepreneur Charles Sullivan. Sullivan was putting on jazz, blues, and R&B shows in the predominantly African American neighborhood. Eventually Graham got his own dancehall permit, and continued to put on shows that mixed rock bands with African American artists. Young, stoned hippies would come to see psychedelic rock bands like Jefferson Airplane, and wound up dancing their hearts out to Motown acts like Martha and the Vandellas. Graham even helped revive the career of the legendary BB King by exposing him to white audiences. When King saw the response of all the kids dancing to his music, he cried. There were no limitations in the mind or heart of Bill Graham. The synergistic combination of diverse acts made him a unique promoter. He knew what would work, and what would not. More than that he recognized the bands and fans as a community which supported each other.
In 1968 Bill Graham moved to the Carousel Ballroom. The original Fillmore Auditorium was falling apart and it was time for a change. He renamed this new building Fillmore West. In the same year the Fillmore East in New York City opened up, and Graham would fly between the two venues every week.
One night at the Fillmore West a guitarist failed to show up for the gig. Graham asked if there was a guitarist in the audience, and the young man who volunteered was Carlos Santana. After the show Graham said something along the lines of, “Hey man, you should really start a band”. At the time Santana played with the Santana Blues Band. So, from that point on, Bill Graham managed Santana. When Woodstock came around Bill Graham helped advise the folks that produced the festival. The only payment he wanted was to put Santana on the bill, and the rest is history.
The music gained momentum and exploded in the seventies. Bands wanted more money, they had agents, and egos. Graham did not want to deal with all the demands and shut down the Fillmore East and West in their peak in 1971. He said he wanted out of rock ‘n’ roll. This lasted a mere six months; Graham just could not stay away. This time around he put on shows at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco. Momentous events like The Last Waltz-the final concert for Bob Dylan’s band, The Band- was filmed there. Every New Year’s there would be a rowdy Grateful Dead concert and at the stroke of midnight Bill Graham would come out in a wild costume. One year he was a chicken and laid an egg.
After about seven years, Bill shut down the Winterland Arena. The last hurrah was one of the infamous Grateful Dead New Year’s shows in 1978. The venue was in its prime, but at least it ended on a real high and groovy note. Even after Winterland shut down, the Grateful Dead New Year’s bonanzas grooved on. In 1988, Graham dressed up as as Father Time, wore a wizard outfit, and rode around on a giant mushroom. It is said the Grateful Dead always tried to dose Bill Graham with LSD. They may have gotten him…a couple of times.
Throughout the 80s, Graham focused his energy on putting on massive benefit concerts. At this point the bands that were once playing in living rooms, had now reached stadium audiences. Though he had never desired to put on stadium productions for obvious reasons of sound quality and overall fan experience, it was in a way inevitable. The fact that the music grew in this way, however, is no less than incredible.
One day in 1991 Bill Graham went to a Huey Lewis concert. The weather was terrible and despite being warned not to fly, Bill was always in a hurry. His home was just thirty miles from the venue. The helicopter flew into an electric utility tower, exploded, and in that moment the lights dimmed in the concert. No one knew that this was the moment, that Bill Graham died.
In a matter of days a tribute concert was organized in Golden Gate Park, for a gathering of Laughter, Love, and Music. Nearly half a million people came, and many of the artists who had known Graham since the start like the Grateful Dead, Carlos Santana, and Crosby Stills Nash & Young performed in his honor. He was after all, no less than legendary himself.
At the 5th annual Bridge School Benefit, the same week as the memorial, Neil Young dedicated a special instrumental version of his song, ‘Greensleeves’, to Bill. After every single concert Bill would play ‘Greensleeves’ over the loudspeakers of his venues to ease people back into reality, to let them know, hey, it’s ok…to go home.
