Bill Graham

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Bill Graham (born Wulf Wolodia Grajonca, 1931-1991) was a German-American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s to his death in 1991 in a helicopter crash.

He was sent from Germany to France on July 4, 1939, to escape the Nazis.

He stayed in a foster home in Bronx, New York, at age ten.

Graham graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School and City College with a business degree. He moved to San Francisco in the early 1960s and, in 1965, began to run the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

He had collaborated with local Haight Ashbury promoter Chet Helms and Family Dog, as well as their extended network, to stage a benefit concert that later spawned several free concerts.

He later turned this into a full-time job with a talented team.

Graham had a major influence around the world, promoting the musical revival of the 1960s from San Francisco's epicenter.

Chet Helms and later Bill Graham performed the Fillmore and Winterland Arena, making them proving grounds for rock bands and performers of San Francisco Bay, including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, who were first introduced by Chet Helms and then developed in some instances.

Early life

Graham was born in Berlin on January 8, 1931, the youngest child and only son of Jewish lower middle-class parents, Frieda (née Sass) and Jacob "Yankel" Grajonca, who had immigrated from Russia before the rise of Nazism. In the Grajonca family, there were six children. His father died two days after his son's birth. Early in life, Graham's family called him "Wolfgang."

Graham's mother in Germany and as a result of Jacob Grajonca's death, her son and her youngest daughter, Tanya "Tolla," were sent to France in a pre-Holocaust exchange of Jewish children for Christian orphanages. Sonja and Ester, Graham's older sisters, stayed at home with their mother. Following France's demise, Graham was one of a group of Jewish orphanages spirited out of France, some of whom had migrated to the United States. Tolla Grajonca came down with pneumonia and did not survive the difficult ride. Graham was one of the One Thousand Children (OTC), those mainly Jewish children who managed to escape Hitler and Europe and enter North America directly, but parents were forced to stay behind. At Auschwitz, Graham's mother was assassinated.

Graham was placed in a foster home in The Bronx, New York City, once in the United States. Graham worked on his accent after being taunted as an immigrant and being called a Nazi because of his German-accented English, eventually being able to talk in a seamless New York accent. He shortened his name to make it more "American." (He found "Graham" in the phone book, which was the nearest he'd find to his birth surname, "Grajonca." Both "Bill" and "Graham" were meaningless to him, according to Graham. Graham graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School and then obtained a business degree from City College of New York. Later, he was described as "an efficiency specialist" in his work.

Graham was recruited into the US Army in 1951 and served in the Korean War, where he was honoured both the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. On his return to the United States, he served as a waiter/maître d' in Catskill Mountain resorts in upstate New York during their heyday. He was quoted as saying that his time as a maître d' and with the poker games he hosted behind the scenes was beneficial preparation for his eventuality as a promoter. Graham was keen to learn Spanish from him, but only about the curse words, according to Tito Puente, who worked at one of these resorts. In his bio-pic "Last Days At The Fillmore," he also worked for Minnesota Mining.

Personal life

Bill Graham had five sisters, Rita Rose; Evelyn (or "Echa") Udray; Sonja (or "Sonia") Szobel; Ester Chichinsky; and Tanya (or "Tolla") Grajonca, but his youngest sister Tolla died of pneumonia while fleeing the Holocaust. Rita and Ester lived in the United States and were close to Graham in his later years. Evelyn and Sonja survived the Holocaust, first to Shanghai and then, after the war, to Europe. Hermann Szobel, Graham's nephew and Sonia Szobel's son, is a musician.

Graham married Bonnie MacLean on June 11, 1967 and they had one child, David (born 1968), but the couple divorced in 1975 after many years of not living together. Graham had another son, Marcia Sult Godinez, Alex Graham-Sult, and Thomas Sult, a stepson.

Graham lived in Mill Valley, California, on an 11-acre ranch-style home he named "Masada." In the early 2000s, the house was rebuilt and later occupied by WeWork CEO Adam Neumann.

During Ronald Reagan's presidency, Graham's reputation as a Holocaust survivor came into play. In protest, Graham decided not to lay a wreath at Bitburg's World War II cemetery, where SS soldiers were also buried. Neo-Nazis bombed Graham's San Francisco office in the same month as Reagan visited the cemetery. Graham was in France at the time, visiting Bob Geldof and arranging the first Live Aid concert in France. "Was anyone hurt?" he was alerted of the fire via telephone. "Is there anything left?" says the guy after being told that everyone was fine. Graham later led an effort to build a large menorah that is lit during every Hanukkah in downtown San Francisco.

Graham had long aspired to be a role actor. He appeared in Apocalypse Now in a small capacity as a promoter. In the 1990 film Bugsy, he was cast as Charles "Lucky" Luciano. He is seen in a Latin dance number for one scene, a style of dancing Graham had adopted as a youth in New York. In 1991 Oliver Stone's film The Doors, which he also co-produced, he appears as a promoter. Don Brubaker, a hippie anti-war protester, appeared in gardens of Stone for a brief period of time.

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Career

In the early 1960s, Graham moved from New York to San Francisco to be closer to his sister Rita. He was invited to a free concert in Golden Gate Park, produced by Chet Helms and the Diggers, where he first became involved with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, a radical theater group. Following the deposition of R. G. Davis, the Mime Troupe chief, on obscenity charges after an outdoor appearance, Graham arranged a benefit concert to cover the troupe's legal fees. Graham saw a business opportunity at the concert, and it was a success.

Graham began promoting more concerts with Chet Helms and Family Dog projects, which served as a crucial part of the 1960s, by promoting concerts as a social meeting place to network, where many ideologies were discussed, often on stage, such as peace activists, civil rights, farm workers, and others. The bulk of his shows were held in rented venues, and Graham saw the need for more permanent locations of his own.

Charles Sullivan, a mid-century entrepreneur and businessman in San Francisco who owned the Fillmore Auditorium on a master lease. On December 10, 1965, Graham approached Sullivan to stage the Second Mime Troupe appeals concert at the Fillmore Auditorium, using Sullivan's dance hall ticket for the performance. Graham received a Sullivan apprenticeship for the open dates at the Fillmore Auditorium in 1966. Graham thanks Sullivan for giving him his first break in the music concert hall industry.

For the past 50 years, the Fillmore brand and brand have defined music in the United States. The Fillmore phenomenon and how the Black community in the 1960s was disenfranchised spans from 2003 to 2013. Reviewing what Graham left in his own words would be the most effective way to break the historic record straight about Charles Sullivan and Bill Graham. In a Bay Area Music article from 1988, Graham mentioned Charles Sullivan for the first time in print.

Although Graham acknowledged Sullivan's presence in the Fillmore Auditorium's history, he has never disclosed how or when he obtained the Fillmore Auditorium's lease, as well as the fact that the Fillmore brand was registered to Sullivan. Bill Graham gives a general snapshot of the Fillmore area in this handbill from Graham's first appearance at the Fillmore Auditorium.

"Graham... is extremely excited about the opening of the Fillmore Auditorium Show," Mime Troupe chief R. G. Davis says. He got a deal with the black guy who ruled the Fillmore. He nails it. "It's closed" is the word that has been thrown out. Graham outlined his struggles with City Hall in seeking a dance hall ticket on pages 150–156 of his autobiography. By schmoozing with retailers and finding criminologists and sociologists from Washington, D.C., you will benefit. Berkeley and Washington, D.C. - Santa Cruz was praised for his performances, but was turned down once more. Sullivan came to him sometime in March or April and said he had to forfeit his dance hall ticket. Sullivan met Graham outside of his office in the Fillmore Auditorium in the morning of the next day. Sullivan poured out his personal life, concluding with a promise of helping Graham beat City Hall. "He was the guy, Charles," Graham said. He was it. I'm not sure if I'd have ever discovered another place.

Why would I have even tried?

That was the place.

The Board of Permit Appeals denied Graham who had refused to overrule the first refusal. "The Fillmore Auditorium Case" was an editorial,' Graham said on Thursday, and it was a big turning point for me. He obtained his licence in more ways than one; he did not have to worry about it. "Charles Sullivan was killed a few months later," he later reported. He had a bad habit of carrying a roll of cash with him. He was proud of his work and proud of the fact that he made a good living while also being on a roll. They jumped him and stabbed him to death. I went to his funeral in Colma, California. It was small, mainly family. I think I would have done something Charles wanted if that hadn't happened. "Just out of kindness."

On August 2, 1966, Charles Sullivan was discovered dead at 1:45 a.m., in San Francisco's South of Market industrial district near the train station. Sullivan had just returned from Los Angeles, where he had just appeared in a weekend concert starring soul singer James Brown. The police were unable to determine whether Sullivan's death was suicide or homicide. Sullivan was laid to rest on August 8, 1966, according to the Sun Reporter, who reported that "Last respects were paid to Charles Sullivan, 1975 Observation Church" when hundreds packed into Jones Memorial Methodist Church, 1975. From 11:30 a.m. to see Sullivan for the final time. By 1 p.m., a huge crowd had assembled to hear the eulogy for a friend. The funeral announcement is supplemented by photographs of the actual funeral, which includes two pages in which police are withholding traffic to help with the motorcade to the cemetery in Colma.

The following is a summary of Graham's funeral procession: the state of New York's death on October 25, 1991.

An interesting fact that was not included in the articles discussing Sullivan's death is that his death is highlighted in The Sun Reporter: an interesting fact.

Sullivan gave the Fillmore Auditorium's name as well as the historical record.

In an article in Billboard Magazine, June 11, 1966, Graham's struggle to obtain his dance hall ticket in 1966 was chronicled. Graham obtained a three-year lease for the Fillmore Auditorium from Charles Sullivan but was still struggling to obtain his dance hall license, according to San Francisco music critic Ralph Gleason, who was never explicitly informed by Graham. Charles Sullivan's last performance at the Fillmore Auditorium came a week before his death, on July 26, 1966, The Temptations Dance and Show. Graham must have obtained his license in mid-July 1966, confirming his owning of the Fillmore brand.

When and how did Bill Graham purchase the Fillmore Auditorium lease? The answer came in 2004: Hendrik Hertzberg's Politics & Arguments (1966-2004) contains an essay titled "The San Francisco Sound, New music, and a new subculture," at the end of which it states, "Unpublished file for Newsweek, October 28, 1966." This is the only published account of Graham's acquisition of the Fillmore. Hertzberg addresses his familiar territory with the Mime Troupe, transforming the Fillmore Auditorium into a run-down ballroom in "SF's biggest negro ghetto." Graham participated in the Troupe after the success of the Fillmore Auditorium Mime Troupe, finding that eleven other promoters had already registered for it. Graham invited forty-one influential people to write letters to the auditorium's owner, Harry Shifs, and Shifs gave him a three-year contract worth five hundred dollars per month, according to Jerry Garcia.

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The Paul Butterfield Blues Band appeared in one of Graham's early concerts, with Chet Helms hired to promote it. The concert was a huge success, and Graham wanted to perform with the band for the first time. Graham's secretary called Albert Grossman, the band's manager, and secured exclusive rights to promote them early the next morning. Chet Helms arrived at Graham's office just after, asking how Graham could have kicked him out of the contract. Helms would not have known about it if he had attempted to do the same thing to Graham, as Graham pointed out. Helms advised Helms to "get up early" in the future. Graham's film includes elements of America's now-legendary 1960s counterculture, including the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the improv group The Fugs, Allen Ginsberg, and a particular favorite of Graham's, the Grateful Dead. Between 1967 and 1968, he was the boss of the Jefferson Airplane. Graham became the top rock concert promoter in the San Francisco Bay Area thanks to his staff's dedication, success, fame, and personal relationships with artists and fans alike.

Fillmore Records, which was in existence from 1969 to 1976, was owned by Graham. Rod Stewart, Elvin Bishop, and Cold Blood were among those who signed with Graham, but it seems that only Bishop released albums on the Fillmore brand. Tower of Power was signed to Bill Graham's San Francisco Records, and their first album, East Bay Grease, was released in 1970.

Graham, who cites financial motives and shifts he felt as unwelcome in the music business, closed the Fillmore East and West in 1971, citing a need to "find [himself]" "find [himself." The movie Fillmore and the album Fillmore: The Last Days document the Fillmore West's closing. Graham returned to promotion later this year. He began arranging concerts at smaller venues, including the Berkeley Community Theatre on Berkeley High School's campus. He and the Fillmore West revived the Winterland Arena (San Francisco) and promoted shows at the Cow Palace Arena in Daly City and other venues.

With The Band, Grateful Dead, and The Allman Brothers Band, Jimmy Koplic and Shelly Finkle's promotion of the largest outdoor concert in Watkins Glen, New York, was he in 1973. Over 600,000 paying ticket holders were in attendance. Led Zeppelin's 1973 and 1977 concerts at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco began with Led Zeppelin in 1973 and 1977, the first outdoor stadium concerts at the Oakland Coliseum were billed as Day on the Green in 1973. On October 9, 1976, the Grateful Dead and The Who, and Bob Dylan in 1987, these concerts featured billings like the Grateful Dead and The Who.

On Sunday, Marlon Brando, Francis Ford Coppola, members of The Band and Grateful Dead, Mimi Farie Albert, Jefferson Davis, Santana, Mimi Farie Albert, Mimi Farie Albert, Jerome Casals, Manuel Williams, Jerome Murphy, & Friends, The Miracles, Graham Central Station, and the appearances: Marlon Brando, Francis Ford Coppola, John Brodie, Mimi Farie Albert, Mr.

Bill Graham Presents, Unuson, a Graham Graham, was on the 1982 US Festival, which was sponsored by Steve Wozniak as Unuson. He created the Shoreline Amphitheatre, Silicon Valley's best outdoor concert venue in the mid-1980s, in collaboration with the city of Mountain View, California, and Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Wozniak, complementing his reservation of the East Bay Concord Pavilion. Graham has performed at charity benefit concerts throughout his career. He continued to set the bar for large-scale rock concerts, including the one in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 1985, as well as the 1986 Human Rights Now! Amnesty International is a tour guide.

Graham bought comedy troupe 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 remainder of his life, and Wolfgang's on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco.

Following the lower sales, Ticketmaster (formerly BASS), the remaining one, soared to historic highs. Its only criticism came from a handful of bands, including Pearl Jam, which argued that the company's high ticketing rates were unfair to music enthusiasts. The California Senate in S.B. has condemned such conduct. The 815.

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