see also here here. here and here
Bill Graham on The David Letterman Show, 1982
Bill Graham on CBS, profile, 1987
Today, January 8, marks the birthday of a key figure of the counterculture – Bill Graham
Bill Graham (1931-1991), born Wulf Wolodia Grajonca, in Berlin, Germany, was a legendary American impresario and rock concert promoter.
In the early 1960s, Graham moved from New York, where he had grown up, to San Francisco, and in 1965, began his career managing the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Early on, he teamed up with local Haight Ashbury promoter Chet Helms (another legend). Both men found themselves at the heart of a burgeoning (and soon-to-be-historic) music scene. Chet’s style was “easy-going, mellow, soft-tempered until pushed.” Graham’s style was more driven. As the concerts became more popular, inevitably, “conflicts” arose between the two promoters, but, as his (Chet’s) wife, Judy Davis, observed, while there was a rivalry between Helms and Graham, it was cordial. “They always got along. It was a friendly rivalry.”
Grateful Dead drummer, Micky Hart: “He (Helms) was like Bill Graham, but he was the soft side; he was sweet as sugar. His business sense wasn’t as keen as Bill’s but he really believed in the music”
Hart on Bill Graham: “Bill always took pride in what he did, whether it was the Winterland or the East or the West Fillmore. You could see him before the show, you know, with his watches, clipboard and everything, making sure the chairs were right..He was a saloon-keeper, he was a proprietor at the beginning, that was what his license says – “saloon-keeper”, you know.. So he comes back from taking great pride in bringing people into an environment, making them feel really great, and then sending them home safe, you know. He was like a warrior promoter. And he really cared. He would sit up at night and dream this stuff. It wasn’t like he just went to work and punched a clock. Bill was driven.”
In February 1966, Helms formally founded Family Dog Productions to begin promoting concerts at The Fillmore Auditorium, alternating weekends with Graham. Several months later (and through to November 1968), he began his own series of (all of them, extraordinary, historic, groundbreaking) concerts at the Avalon Ballroom
From Bill Graham Presents (1992)
Ken Kesey: Neal Cassady was Bill’s nemesis. I mean, Neal could eat three Bill Grahams with a small glass of sauterne on the side to wash him down. This was a guy who was off the scale.
I remember going to the Fillmore to see a concert Bill was doing. We had our outfits on. We had just gotten off the bus. We were coming there in full Prankster power. It was about six-thirty in the afternoon, the sun was just going down and it was pretty. Suddenly Bill came out of the Fillmore. He was very busy. He looked up and there we were, coming towards him.
He didn’t want to deal with us so he got out into the street and pretended to be looking for something. As he went by, Cassady said, “There’s Bill Graham out there, checking the tire treads to see if one of them picked up a nickel”. Bill heard him. He flushed. But he couldn’t take Cassady on. No one could. He could run circles around anyone with words.
Bill came over and asked him why he had said this. Neal said, “‘Cause I’m concerned about your soul Bill”. Bill said, “This is just show business, Neal”. Neal said, “This is soul business, Bill”.
Bill built up an empire, before his tragic death in a helicopter crash, in 1991. It was show business, but he always knew it was soul business too.
Back in 2020 the New York Historical Society presented Bill Graham – From the Berlin to the Bronx
Jon Parales reviews the show in the New York Times – here
Jessica Gelt in the LA Times here
Here’s an interview with Ralph Moratz, Bill Graham’s childhood friend, interviewed by Bonnie Simmons, of the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation
Here’s more memories of Bill from rock luminaries, looking back on his illustrious, career