The legendary concert promoter is the subject of a new show in LA, which collects together memorabilia from the biggest rock stars of the music industry’s glory days

Legendary concert promoter Bill Graham arrived in New York aged 11. A German-born orphan then called Wulf Wolodia Grajanca, he had fled the Holocaust with nothing but a prayer book, a yarmulke and a photograph of his family to his name. He weighed 55lbs and was suffering from rickets and malnutrition when he was placed in foster care in the Bronx.

Back then, there was no way of knowing he would grow up to be the man who introduced bands like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to the world, and later handle tours for the likes of Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. His life and the music he promoted are the subject of a comprehensive new show at Los Angeles’ Skirball cultural center, Bill Graham & the Rock ‘n’ Roll Revolution.

“It’s very characteristic of Holocaust survivors to save everything, because most of them had everything taken away from them,” notes Graham’s friend and biographer Robert Greenfield, who worked with curator Erin Clancey on the text to go with the show’s 400 photos, documents and memorabilia from collectors across the country.

They include Binky Philips, the indie label owner who in 1970, was just another kid at New York’s Metropolitan Opera at a concert by the Who. That night, instead of smashing his guitar to pieces as usual, Pete Townshend tossed the 1968 Gibson SG Special, used in a performance of Tommy, to Philips, who was lucky enough to be in the front row.

Other exhibits include Jerry Garcia’s “Wolf” guitar; Janis Joplin’s tambourine; a dress worn by Grace Slick at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival; and a portrait of Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol. “Mick was staying at Bill’s house in Marin County,” explains Clancey. “He threw a party and trashed the place, so he gave him several Warhols to make up for it.”

Artist Joshua White, who created the light shows for Graham’s concerts back in the 60s, put together a site-specific piece as part of the exhibit, just a few steps away from 130 original Fillmore posters by artists who pioneered psychedelia like Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse and Rick Griffin.

So how did Graham become such a mover and shaker? After returning home from the Korean war, in his early 20s he worked as a waiter in the Catskills where he hoped to become an actor. Frustrated, he headed west in the early 60s and eventually became manager of a radical theatre group called the San Francisco Mime Troupe. When their leader Ronnie Davis was arrested on obscenity charges during a performance in 1965, Graham staged a benefit concert for his legal defence.

“The first benefit concert was with the Fugs, Jefferson Airplane and John Handy,” says Greenfield. “Bill sees how many people are waiting to get in at the venue and he knows immediately what he’s going to do for the rest of his life.”

The second appeal concert was a month later, on 10 December 1965. It featured Jefferson Airplane, Great Society and “friends” who included the Grateful Dead, who had only recently changed their name from the Warlocks. A month later, Graham was asked to manage the Three-day Trips festival, one of Ken Kesey’s acid test parties, which many consider to be the birthplace of 60s psychedelia.

“Bill was the only one not on drugs, straightlaced, holding a clipboard,” says Clancey. “This is where he got to know members of the Grateful Dead, and he became close with Jerry Garcia, and their relationship lasted.” However, it had a rocky start when Garcia showed up to the gig so high on acid that he forgot he was supposed to play. The organisers projected on a slide projector the words: “Jerry Garcia, plug in.”

Garcia made his way to the stage only to find someone had trashed his guitar and a stranger was on his hands and knees trying to put it back together. “It’s Bill Graham. And Garcia thinks, what a great guy,” says Greenfield. “What he doesn’t get is Bill just wanted to get the act on stage. It’s two different planes trying to talk to each other. These guys don’t care about putting on a concert, they just want to drop acid and go crazy.”

From that point on, Graham began staging concerts at the Fillmore on a regular basis. Many of the acts were little known at the time. He booked Cream for five nights in 1968 after hearing them on the radio. “Cream comes, and all of the sudden they’ve got to play two sets,” says Greenfield. “They don’t have two sets, so they start extending the songs. Eric [Clapton] starts to jam and they go off. All of a sudden rock and roll is also improvisational.”

The first time Hendrix played the Fillmore West, only 800 fans turned out at $3.50 per seat. After wheeling through a set playing behind his head, with his teeth, between his legs, he asked Graham: “What’d you think?” “Jimi, you did everything but play,” Graham answered.

“For the second show he doesn’t move,” says Greenfield. “He just stands there for 45 minutes and plays the most brilliant music that Bill has ever heard. And it’s a ‘fuck’ you to Bill. That’s what Bill wanted.”

Graham was not overly endowed with the peace-and-love spirit of the times; his temper led Mime Troupe member Peter Coyote to describe him as a mix between Mother Teresa and Al Capone. Greenfield says that he never yelled at Hendrix, but Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company were another story altogether.

“He had a close relationship with Janis,” Greenfield recalls. “But he definitely yelled at her and her band cause they were all spaced out hippies from San Francisco. If you screwed up, Bill was just relentless and unforgiving. If a musician was late coming to a gig, Bill would just rip him a new one. There was no tolerance for a lack of professionalism.”

Rock changed forever in 1969 with Woodstock festival. The concert made headlines around the world and when the movie followed, the image of the rock star exploded from subculture to pop culture. In the decade afterwards, record contracts surged into the millions, egos ballooned and Graham reluctantly (but lucratively) found himself in the centre of it all as an A-list promoter handling tours for George Harrison, the Allman Brothers, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and many others.

In the 80s, he pioneered the idea of using rock to promote a cause, something he had done on a local level back in San Francisco, and now achieved on a global level with shows like Live Aid, A Conspiracy of Hope and Human Rights Now raising hundreds of millions of dollars. In 1991, Graham was flying back from a Huey Lewis and the News concert when his helecopter hit a utility tower and burst into flames, killing everyone on board. A few days after Graham was buried, a memorial concert drew an audience of over 300,000, the largest ever to honour a businessman.

“Bill and I were close,” says Greenfield. “You couldn’t have a casual relationship with Bill. He was an extraordinarily charismatic human being, funny as hell. He was brilliant, he was driven, and he was somebody you never thought would die.”