Bill Graham (promoter)
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|
Bill Graham | |
---|---|
Helicopter crash | |
Other names | Uncle Bobo |
Occupation(s) | Businessman, musical impresario |
Years active | 1960s–1991; his death |
Organization | Bill Graham Presents |
Spouse | Bonnie MacLean (divorced) |
Children | 3, including 1 stepchild |
Bill Graham (born Wulf Wolodia Grajonca; January 8, 1931 – October 25, 1991) was a
In the early 1960s, Graham moved to
Early life
Graham was born on January 8, 1931, in Berlin.[3] He was the youngest child and only son of Jewish lower middle-class parents, Frieda (née Sass) and Jacob "Yankel" Grajonca,[4][5] who had emigrated from Russia before the rise of Nazism.[6][7] There were six children in the Grajonca family. His father died accidentally two days after Graham was born.[8][5] Graham's family nicknamed him "Wolfgang" early in life.[9]
Due to the increasing
After the
At age 10, he settled into a foster home in
Graham was
Career
Fillmore Auditorium (December 10, 1965 – July 4, 1968)
Graham moved from New York to San Francisco in the early 1960s to be closer to his sister Rita. He was invited to attend a free concert in Golden Gate Park, produced by Chet Helms and the Diggers, where he made contact with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, a radical theater group.[13] After Mime Troupe leader R. G. Davis was arrested on obscenity charges during an outdoor performance, Graham organized a benefit concert to cover the troupe's legal fees. The concert was a success and Graham saw a business opportunity.
Graham began promoting more concerts with Chet Helms and
Charles Sullivan was a mid-20th-century entrepreneur and businessman in San Francisco who owned the master lease on the Fillmore Auditorium. Graham approached Sullivan to put on the Second Mime Troupe appeals concert at the Fillmore Auditorium on December 10, 1965, using Sullivan's dance hall permit for the show. Graham later secured a contract from Sullivan for the open dates at the Fillmore Auditorium in 1966. Graham credits Sullivan with giving him his break in the music concert hall business.
The Fillmore trademark and franchise has defined music promotion in the United States for the last 50 years. From 2003 to 2013 auxiliary writers of the times surrounding the 1960s, and Graham family lawsuits,[14] tell the narrative of the Fillmore phenomena and how the Black community there was disenfranchised.[15] The best way to set the historic record straight concerning Charles Sullivan and Bill Graham is to review what Graham left in his own words. Historically the first time Graham mentioned Charles Sullivan, in print, was in a Bay Area Music article from 1988:
Bill Graham — and anyone who's even attended a show at San Francisco Fillmore — owes a big debt to Charles Sullivan... "If Mr. Sullivan, Charles, hadn't stood by me and allowed me to use his permit I wouldn't be sitting here."[16]
Although Graham acknowledged Sullivan's part he historically has never revealed how he got the lease to the Fillmore Auditorium and how and when he trademarked the Fillmore brand, which by all historical accounts belonged to Sullivan.[15] In a handbill from Graham's first show at the Fillmore Auditorium, "The Mime Troupe is holding another appeal party Friday night, December 10th, at the Fillmore Auditorium", Bill Graham gives a general impression of the Fillmore neighborhood:
The Fillmore Auditorium was located on Fillmore and Geary, which was like 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem.... In there, Charles Sullivan, a black businessman, had booked a lot of the best R&B acts.... Charles had put on James Brown and Duke Ellington. At the Fillmore, Bobby Bland and the Temptations.... I met Charles Sullivan by appointment the second time I saw the ballroom.... We needed a dance permit but I didn't have one. Of course, he had one because he operated the place. So he allowed us to use his permit and didn't charge me for it.[9]
Mime Troupe leader R. G. Davis states that, "Graham... got very excited about the success of the Fillmore Auditorium Show. He got a contract with the black guy who owned the Fillmore. He nails it. Closed." On pages 150–156 of his autobiography, Graham outlined his battles with City Hall in getting a dance hall permit. By schmoozing with merchants and having criminologists and sociologists from U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Santa Cruz giving merit to the shows Graham managed to obtain a second permit hearing, but was again denied. He reported that Sullivan came to him sometime in March or April and announced he had to pull his dance hall permit. The morning of the next day, when Graham was returning to move out of his office in the Fillmore Auditorium, Sullivan met him on the steps. Graham claimed Sullivan poured out his life story, concluding with a pledge of support to Graham to beat City Hall. Graham added, "He was the guy, Charles. He was it. I don't know if I could have ever found another place. Why would I have even tried? That was the place."[9]
Graham was denied by the Board of Permit Appeals who refused to overrule the first denial. Graham then stated, "Then on April 21, 1966, a Thursday, the Chronicle ran an editorial, 'The Fillmore Auditorium Case' ... [I]t was a big turning point for me. In more ways than one"; he secured his permit.[9]
Charles Sullivan was found shot dead at 1:45 am on August 2, 1966, at 5th and Bluxome Streets, San Francisco (South of Market industrial area near the train station). Sullivan had just returned from Los Angeles, where he had presented a weekend concert starring soul singer James Brown. The police have never determined whether Sullivan's death was suicide or homicide.[17][18]
Sullivan was laid to rest on August 8, 1966, according to the Sun Reporter, which reported that "Last respects were paid Charles Sullivan Monday, Aug. 8, when hundreds crowded into Jones Memorial Methodist Church, 1975 Post St. from 11:30 a.m. to view Sullivan for the last time. An enormous crowd had gathered by 1 p.m. to hear the eulogy for a friend."[19] The funeral announcement is accompanied by photographs of the actual funeral covering two pages in which police are stopping traffic to assist the motorcade to the cemetery in Colma.[19] Graham later reported, "Charles Sullivan got himself killed. He had a bad habit of always carrying a roll of money with him. He was proud of his work and proud of the fact that he earned a good living and always carried a roll. He was jumped and stabbed to death. I went to his funeral in Colma, California. It was small, mostly family. Had that not happened, I think I would have done anything Charles wanted. Just out of gratitude."[9]
After Graham's death on October 25, 1991, the description of his funeral procession states:
Escorted by motorcycle police, more long black limousines than had ever before been seen at a private funeral in the city of San Francisco formed a phalanx for the procession to the cemetery. Bill was to be buried in Colma, the same small town south of San Francisco filled with graveyards where so many years before Bill himself had gone to the funeral of Charles Sullivan, the black man who stood up for him when the Fillmore Auditorium was on the line.[9]
The Sun Reporter noted:
He took over the Fillmore Auditorium at Geary and Fillmore Sts. and began to present different artists in dances and concerts. Some of the greatest names in the entertainment world, like Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Ray Charles and numerous others, have been presented all up and down the Pacific Coast by Sullivan. He always signed these artists for presentations not only in San Francisco, but in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, and Seattle."[19]
According to the historical record, Sullivan also gave the Fillmore Auditorium its name.[15]
Graham's struggle to get his dance hall permit in 1966 was described in an article in
It was unknown how Graham had taken over the Fillmore lease until the 2004 publication of Hendrik Hertzberg's Politics Observations & Arguments (1966-2004). It contains an article, "The San Francisco Sound, New music, new subculture", at the end of which it stated, "Unpublished file for Newsweek, October 28, 1966". This article contains the only published account of how Graham acquired the Fillmore.[22] In the beginning, Hertzberg recounts familiar territory with the Mime Troupe, reducing the Fillmore Auditorium to a run-down ballroom in "SF's biggest negro ghetto." After the success of the Fillmore Auditorium Mime Troupe shows, Graham parts ways with the Troupe: "He went back to the Fillmore and found that eleven other promoters had already put in bids for it. Graham got forty-one prominent citizens to write letters to the auditorium's owner, a haberdasher named Harry Shifs, and Shifs gave him a three-year lease at five hundred dollars a month.... [T]he hippie community ... has turned out to be something the man from Montgomery Street can point to with pride, in a left-handed way, and say 'these are our boys'", stated Jerry Garcia.[22]: 8–9
One of the early concerts Graham sponsored, with
Fillmore Records, West, East, and later
Graham owned Fillmore Records, which was in operation from 1969 to 1976. Some of those who signed with Graham included Rod Stewart, Elvin Bishop, and Cold Blood,[24] although of these it seems only Bishop actually issued albums on the Fillmore label. [citation needed] Tower of Power was signed to Bill Graham's San Francisco Records and their first album, East Bay Grease, was recorded in 1970.[25]
By 1971, Graham citing financial reasons and changes he saw as unwelcome in the music industry,
In 1973 he did the staging for Jimmy Koplic and Shelly Finkle's promotion of the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen rock festival at Watkins Glen, New York with The Band, Grateful Dead, and The Allman Brothers Band. Over 600,000 paying ticket-holders were in attendance. He continued promoting stadium-sized concerts at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco with Led Zeppelin in 1973 and 1977 and started a series of outdoor stadium concerts at the Oakland Coliseum each billed as Day on the Green in 1973 until 1992. These concerts featured billings such as the Grateful Dead and The Who on October 9, 1976, and the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan in 1987.
His first large-scale outdoor benefit concert, at
Graham as Bill Graham Presents booked the 1982
Graham purchased comedy club The Punch Line and The Old Waldorf on Battery Street in San Francisco from local promoter Jeffrey Pollack, with whom he remained close friends for the rest of his life,[34][35][36] then Wolfgang's on Columbus Ave in San Francisco.[37][38][35][39]
Personal life
Family
Bill Graham had five sisters, Rita Rose; Evelyn (or "Echa") Udray; Sonja (or "Sonia") Szobel; Ester Chichinsky; and Tanya (or "Tolla") Grajonca, however his youngest sister Tolla died of pneumonia while fleeing the Holocaust.[8][10][40] Rita and Ester moved to the United States and were close to Graham in his later life. Evelyn and Sonja escaped the Holocaust, first to Shanghai, and later, after the war, to Europe.[41] Graham's nephew and Sonia Szobel's son is musician Hermann Szobel.[42]
Graham married Bonnie MacLean on June 11, 1967, and they had one child, David (born 1968); after many years of not living together the couple divorced in 1975.[43][44] With Marcia Sult Godinez, Graham had another son; Alex Graham-Sult and a stepson, Thomas Sult.[8][45][46]
Home estate
For many years Graham lived in Mill Valley, California, on an 11-acre estate with a ranch-style house he named "Masada"[45][47] which he named after the ancient mountain fort in Israel with the same name, Masada.[48] The house was replaced in the early 2000s, and later occupied by WeWork CEO, Adam Neumann.[49][50]
Bitburg controversy
Graham's status as a
Acting
Graham had long dreamed of being a character actor. He appeared in Apocalypse Now in a small role as a promoter. In 1990, he was cast as Charles "Lucky" Luciano in the film Bugsy.[52] During one scene, he is shown in a Latin dance number, a style of dancing Graham had embraced as a teenager in New York. He also appears as a promoter in the 1991 Oliver Stone film The Doors, which he also co-produced.[53] He had a small part in Gardens of Stone as Don Brubaker, a hippie anti-war protester.[54]
Death
Graham died in a
Aftermath and tributes
Following his death, his company, Bill Graham Presents (BGP), was taken over by a group of employees. Graham's sons remained a core part of the new management team. The new owners sold the company to SFX Promotions,
In tribute, the
Bill Graham was inducted into the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" in 1992 in the "Non-Performer" category.[66] Graham was inducted into the Rock Radio Hall of Fame in the "Without Whom" category in 2014. It would be impossible to overstate Graham's manifold positive contributions to Bay Area music and culture.
See also
- Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, Ltd., 448 F.3d 605 (2d Cir. 2006)—fair use
References
- ^ "Bill Graham Drives His Chevy to the Levee". Rolling Stone. Retrieved August 15, 2017.
- ^ Community Contributor Creative Marketing Associates. "Legacy of Legendary Music Promoter Bill Graham Showcased in New Illinois Holocaust Museum Exhibition". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on August 16, 2017. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
{{cite news}}
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has generic name (help) - ISBN 1-5597-2205-3
- ^ Bill Graham profile, Jewishvirtuallibrary.org; accessed February 10, 2014.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-02-865936-7.
- ^ "Bill Graham, Lead Act at Last". October 7, 1992. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
- ^ "Newsbank website". Nl.newsbank.com. May 6, 1991. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
- ^ ISSN 1553-8095.
- ^ ISBN 9780306813498
- ^ a b c d e "A more personal Bill Graham on display at CJM". J. Jewish Community Federations. March 11, 2016. Archived from the original on April 23, 2017. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- .
- ^ "Tito Puente interview". Bill Graham Memorial Foundation (billgrahamfoundation.org). Archived from the original on November 12, 2013. Retrieved February 10, 2014.
- ^ "Chronology of San Francisco Rock 1965-1969". Sfmuseum.org. Archived from the original on April 21, 2012.
- ^ United States District Court Northern District of California Oakland Division Case No. CV 10-4877 CW
- ^ a b c Pepin, Elizabeth. Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era (Chronicle Books, December 15, 2005).
- ^ Moerer, Keith. "The Historic Fillmore's New Tradition," Bay Area Music (May 20, 1988).
- ^ "The Fillmore: Timeline". PBS.org. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
- ^ San Francisco Chronicle (August 3, 1966).
- ^ a b c The Sun Reporter (August 13, 1966), pp. 8-9, 27.
- ^ Billboard Magazine (July 11, 1966).
- ^ Lefebvre, Sam (June 14, 2017). "Without Charles Sullivan, There'd Be No Fillmore As We Know It | KQED". www.kqed.org. Archived from the original on December 9, 2023. Retrieved March 11, 2024.
- ^ ISBN 1-59420-018-1.
- Wolfgang's Vault. Archivedfrom the original on July 18, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
- ^ "Fillmore Records". Rock and Roll Map. Archived from the original on October 16, 2011. Retrieved October 2, 2011.
- ^ "The Band". Towerofpower.com. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
- ^ "Cash Box Magazine" (PDF). Americanradiohistory.com. May 8, 1971. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
- ^ "Snack concert". www.wolfgangsvault.com. Archived from the original on May 8, 2014. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
- ^ March 12, Peter Hartlaub on; AM, 2012 at 4:17 (March 12, 2012). "The Colombo Files: Bill Graham's 1975 concert for the kids". The Big Event.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "A Look Back At ...SNACK SUNDAY - Bill Graham Foundation". Archived from the original on May 8, 2014. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
- ^ Robert Greenfield. "Bill Graham profile at". Billgrahamfoundation.org. Archived from the original on June 15, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
- ^ "SNACK Benefit Vintage Concert Poster from Kezar Stadium, Mar 23, 1975 at Wolfgang's". Wolfgangs.com.
- ^ "US Festival '82", Softalk magazine, Volume 3 No. 10, pp. 128–140. October 1982.
- ^ "News – St. Petersburg, FL". St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce - Saint Petersburg, FL. Archived from the original on October 27, 2018. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
- ^ "The Old Waldorf, San Francisco, CA, USA Concert Setlists - setlist.fm". Setlist.fm. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
- ^ a b "Old Waldorf - Former Venue On Battery Street In San Francisco, CA". Rockandrollroadmap.com. December 18, 2015. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
- ^ "Punch Line Comedy Club, San Francisco, CA, USA Concert Setlists - setlist.fm". Setlist.fm. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
- ^ "Wolfgang's - Former Venue On Columbus Ave In San Francisco, CA". Rockandrollroadmap.com. December 18, 2015. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
- ^ "Wolfgang's, San Francisco". Discogs.com. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
- ^ "Wolfgang's, San Francisco, CA, USA Concert Setlists - setlist.fm". Setlist.fm. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
- ^ Selvin, Joel (April 6, 1995). "Fallout From Estate Finally Settles / After disputes, heirs resigned, company strong". SFGate.
- ^ "Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution". The Florida Holocaust Museum. Archived from the original on September 28, 2023. Retrieved March 11, 2024.
- ^ "37. Hermann Szobel, 'Szobel' (1976)". Rolling Stone Australia. July 2016. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ^ "Bonnie MacLean". FAMSF Search the Collections. February 26, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ^ Selvin, Joel (April 5, 1995). "Dividing a Lifetime's Bounty / Long, painful negotiations over fate of promoter's estate". SFGate.
- ^ a b Selvin, Joel (April 4, 1995). "BILL GRAHAM'S TANGLED LEGACY / Battle Over Rock Impressario's [sic] Riches". SFGate.
- ^ "Bill Graham Retrospective Headlines At The Contemporary Jewish Museum". hoodline.com. April 3, 2016. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ^ "Interview: DJ Alex Graham". COOL HUNTING®. June 16, 2015. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ^ Marc (December 18, 2015). "Bill Graham's Last Home In Corte Madera, California". History Of Rock Music. Archived from the original on December 6, 2023. Retrieved March 11, 2024.
- ^ "Photos: Marin property once owned by Bill Graham selling for $27.5 million". Marin Independent Journal. August 4, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2021.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Erwert, Anna Marie (September 21, 2020). "$9M Mill Valley compound with a Bill Graham connection is for sale". SFGATE. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ^ Meline, Gabe (March 16, 2016). "Bill Graham: The Personality No Museum Could Possibly Contain". KQED. Archived from the original on July 28, 2019. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ^ "Bugsy". IMDb.com. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
- ^ "The Doors". IMDb.com. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
- ^ "Gardens of Stone". IMDb.com. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
- ^ NTSB (April 27, 1993). "NTSB Identification: LAX92LA029". ntsb.gov. NTSB. Retrieved June 16, 2015.
- ^ Lambert, Bruce (October 27, 1991). "Bill Graham, Rock Impresario, Dies at 60 in Crash". The New York Times. Retrieved April 17, 2008.
- ^ Check Six (November 22, 2014). "Bill Graham's Stairway to Heaven". check-six.com. Retrieved June 16, 2015.
- ^ Simons, Jamie; Lapidese, Jon (July 5, 1987). "Rock in a Hard Place". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
- ^ "N.Y. Firm Pays $65 Million For Bill Graham's Company". Sfgate.com. December 13, 1997. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
- ^ "Clear Channel Music Group Splits Bill Graham Presents Into Two Entities". California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming: Prnewswire.com. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
- ^ Sloan, Paul (November 30, 2007). "Live Nation rocks the music industry". CNN. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
- ^ "Laughter, Love and Music". Dead.net. November 2, 1991. Archived from the original on May 25, 2008. Retrieved April 17, 2008.
- ^ "California Whirls". The Vid. Archived from the original on April 18, 2008. Retrieved April 17, 2008.
- OCLC 363823. Archived from the originalon October 23, 2014. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
In an exuberant civic celebration that served as a salve for the disaster-wreaked Bay Area, about 300,000 rock music fans flooded Golden Gate Park on Sunday for a free concert dedicated to the late impresario and local icon, Bill Graham. Many of the bands that Graham helped catapult from the city's psychedelic music scene to international stardom volunteered to play at the celebration, which invoked a 1960s ethos that in San Francisco has never entirely disappeared. The Grateful Dead, Santana, Joan Baez and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jackson Browne and John Fogerty all turned out for "Laughter, Love and Music", a tribute to the brass-tacks rock promoter with a social conscience who died at age 60 in a helicopter crash 10 days ago.
- ^ "Bill Graham". Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
Further reading
- Rage & Roll: Bill Graham and the Selling of Rock (1993) by ISBN 1-55972-205-3
- Tito Puente: When the Drums are Dreaming (2007) by Josephine Powell; ISBN 978-1425981587
External links
- Bill Graham Foundation
- Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
- Bill Graham discography at Discogs
- Bill Graham interview with Robert Greenfield, famousinterview.ca/interviews/bill_graham.htm; accessed May 7, 2014.
- "Concert Archive Draws Digital Suit", December 2006 MP3 Newswirearticle about the fight over "Wolfgang's Vault" and the digital rights to the Bill Graham concert legacy
- Bill Graham's Stairway to Heaven..., check-six.com; accessed May 7, 2014.
- The Houston Freeburg Collection website Archived February 5, 2011, at the Wayback Machine; accessed May 7, 2014.
- Wolfgang's Vault—contains live music audio/video
- Kenny Wardell of 106 KMEL Interviews Bill Graham, kmelforever.com; accessed May 7, 2014.
- A Video of 106 KMEL Broadcasting Live from Bill Graham's House, kmelforever.com; accessed May 7, 2014