by John Glatt
The next night, Janis waited nervously backstage as a procession of Stax/Volt stars performed. The Bar-Kays opened the show and did the pony and boogaloo. Then Albert King, who had opened the Fillmore East with Big Brother nine months earlier, played. The last act before the intermission was Rufus and Carla Thomas, who dazzled the audience, leaving Janis shaking her head in the wings.
After a short break, Booker T. and the M.G.’s came onstage, followed by Eddie Floyd, who was presently enjoying a huge hit, “Knock on Wood.”
Then the Janis Joplin Revue were announced. They had planned to do three new songs and encore with “Ball and Chain” and “Piece of My Heart.”
Half the audience were African Americans who had never heard of Janis Joplin. The remaining white people who were there to see her did not want to hear any new songs. She started the set with Eddie Floyd’s “Raise Your Hand,” which received little applause. Things went downhill from there, and an encore was scrapped.
“We were intimidated by being there,” explained Sam Andrew, “and we didn’t play very well.”
“Janis Joplin died in Memphis,” wrote Stanley Booth in the next edition of Rolling Stone. “A few people went backstage, where everyone from the Revue was in shock. [Albert Grossman and Mike Bloomfield] tried to tell Janis that she was not to blame for what had happened. She had sung well and the rest had been beyond her control. But she was having none of it.”30
Bandleader Bill King remembers a fan coming backstage after the show and handing Janis a gift that might have helped to erase any of her disappointment, at least for a while.
“She opens it up and it’s six needles with syringes,” said King, “and she’s just so excited about it. I thought, ‘Oh man, this is too weird.’ ”
Later that night, Grossman escorted Janis to a Christmas cocktail party at the home of Stax Records’ president, Jim Stewart. Also there were Isaac Hayes and M.G.’s Steve Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn.
“All the great Memphis musicians were there,” said King. “Janis was in an effervescent mood. She joked, laughed, poured drinks and talked music. All of us were swept away by her sincerity.”
The following morning, during the limo drive to the airport, Janis told King how she and trumpet player Marcus Doubleday had shot heroin after the party and passed out.31
On December 15, the New York Times magazine ran a major profile on Bill Graham, headlined, “The Producer of the New Rock.” The front page showed the smiling promoter in his Fillmore West office alongside another photograph of an appreciative Fillmore East audience.
“I dream about doing the Beatles,” Graham told writer Michael Lydon. “I wake up in the middle of the night and I can see the show.”
Graham said he would present the Beatles for nothing, conceding he would probably turn it into a closed-circuit TV show to offset his costs.
“For Bill Graham,” read the article, “master of the Fillmores West and East, to mount a Beatles concert would be an almost orgasmic consummation of his ambitions.”
Calling him “a classic American success” despite his “underground commodity,” the article said his two Fillmores were “small mints” that had made him rich. His coast-to-coast Fillmore empire was an extension of himself.
“Am I good producer?” he asked. “You’re right, I’m a good producer! Do I do it to feed my ego? Yeah, but it’s a real ego, respect and pride. I wanna be the best; I want that Oscar every night.”
Graham said he worked too hard to enjoy any of his money, admitting he did not spend enough time with his family
“His wife and their three-month-old son, David, live in a big apartment in plush Pacific Heights, San Francisco’s Upper East Side,” wrote Lydon, “but he pads around as he didn’t quite fit in.”32
When Bill Graham read the article he was furious. He fired off a letter to the editor of the New York Times, complaining that he had been falsely caricatured as “a raving Scrooge McDuck.” 33
Soon afterward, Chip Monck’s wife told Bonnie that Bill had been cheating on her.
“She had the kindness to come and tell me,” said Bonnie, “because I hadn’t known.”34
When Bonnie asked Graham’s secretary Marushka Greene if it was true, she told her to ask Bill. When Bonnie confronted her husband, he initially denied it, before breaking down and admitting everything.
“I can still remember the conversation,” said Bonnie. “He was in the bathtub and I was sitting next to him telling him all the reasons why he’s making a big mistake. He’s picking her over me and what’s going to happen here [is] I’m leaving.”35
Graham swore that he loved Bonnie and their new son David more than anything, vowing to break up with Diane immediately. But that would be easier said than done.
The day after Christmas, the Motherfuckers threatened to burn down the Fillmore East when Bill Graham refused to give them free tickets for an MC5 show. The Village Voice’s Howard Smith was there when the Motherfuckers started disrupting the show.
“They started yelling things like, ‘Burn down the Fillmore!’ ” said Smith. “So it was getting kind of dangerous. The ushers were spread out and they didn’t know whether to intercede or not.”
Even the radical MC5, whose patented battle cry was “Kick out the jams, Motherfuckers!” ignored the Motherfuckers, saying they did not want to get involved.
“David Peel and the Lower East Side opened the program, but the real show was the pressure and tension inside the hall,” reported Rolling Stone. “Although most of the seats were filled, the crowd outside the theater wanted in—and the people inside supported them with cries of ‘Open the doors! Open the doors!’ ”36
Bill Graham, transported back to his childhood and the horror of the Nazis, came out to face the angry mob and ordered them to leave.
“They came into the lobby,” said Graham, “and said to me, ‘You know we can come in by force.’ And I said, ‘Well I can’t tell my staff to fight you, because that’s not why they’re hired, but I’m gonna stand in front of the building and if you try to come in, I’m gonna try to stop you.’ ” 37
The mob’s vicious reply was delivered with a chain, lashing across Graham’s face from behind. It broke his nose, which started pouring blood.
“It hit him really, really hard,” said Smith. “He staggered for a second and it was a shock. Then he stood up on the seats . . . above everybody. I was afraid he was going to be killed. It was a mob scene.”
Graham then gave an impassioned speech, telling them how he had fought the Nazis in Europe as a child and survived, and if they wanted to burn down the Fillmore East they would have to take him down first. He then challenged them to fight him, saying he was ready.
“I’ve got to tell you that look [of his] was very ferocious,” said Smith, “and it froze everybody. Not just what he was saying, it was the look in those eyes that you knew he might kill you.”
Nobody came forward to fight him. The place went silent.38
“A strange thing happened,” said Kip Cohen. “The minute they saw the blood on Bill’s face, there was a strong reaction from the crowd, and these hundreds of people who had been swarming on top of him backed away.”39
Many people were disgusted by the chain attack on Bill Graham and left. But now inside the theater the Motherfuckers went on a rampage, causing hundreds of dollars of damage. They broke an usher’s arm with a metal bar and stabbed a young Puerto Rican boy. The asbestos stage curtain, which had been lowered to protect the backstage area, was slashed with a knife.
“And it was completely scary,” said usher Allan Arkush, “and we were told, ‘Take off your Fillmore jerseys and put on your street clothes.’ It turned really ugly.”40
After Bonnie discovered his affair, Bill Graham offered Diane LaChambre $10,000 to leave San Francisco and get out of his life. But she refused, saying she loved him regardless of money.
Graham came to his senses after his lawyer warned him that a messy divorce with a teenage Lolita could ruin him. In fact, it could even get him arrested, as Diane was underage. Finally, it was agreed that Diane would take a trip to Tahiti at Graham’s expense to see her father until things had quieted down.
But Diane did not leave town. On New Year’s Eve, she arrived at Winterland, talking her way backstage. When Bill Graham found out he was livid, as Bonnie was also there to see the Grateful Dead, the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Santana perform.
Graham asked Diane to leave immediately, but she refused, saying that she could handle any confrontation with Graham’s wife. A few minutes later, when Bonnie walked in, the teenager brazenly introduced herself.
“Suddenly there she was,” said Bonnie. “She wanted to be best buddies with me for some reason.”41
When Bonnie said that she knew exactly who she was and she was going to Tahiti, Diane said she had changed her mind.
At midnight, Bill Graham welcomed in 1969 as Old Father Time and announced the Grateful Dead. And backstage, during the long Dead set, Bonnie and her young rival started drinking wine and talking.
At one point Diane asked why they all couldn’t be friends and carry on as before. Bonnie was shocked at the suggestion.
“She thought we would be a ménage à trois or something,” said Bonnie. “But she was just a child for God’s sake. She was sixteen at the most and at the time I thought she was even younger than that.”42
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Sunshine Makers
January to March, 1969
On Saturday, January 4, 1969, Bonnie Graham was backstage at the Fillmore West when Diane LaChambre came over and greeted her like an old friend. Bonnie, who had had a couple of drinks, was furious that her husband’s mistress was “getting in my face.”
Later, as the Grateful Dead played, the women started arguing at the top of the stairs. Then it became physical as they fought on the floor to the astonishment of the people walking by.
“Well, she was on my turf,” explained Bonnie. “and I took exception to it. I then had a few drinks which made it worse. So we actually got into a physical fracas at the top of the stairs of the Fillmore West, and there were plenty of witnesses around. It was the low moment in my life.”
A security guard was trying to break them up when Bill Graham arrived on the scene. He promptly ordered them both out of the building and into his Mercedes. He then drove Diane to her grandmother’s house, saying that the relationship was over and he never wanted to see her again. Then he drove Bonnie back to their apartment.
“I argued fiercely in the car,” she recalled, “and it got a little wild. I was so upset. I was just venting. Having had two drinks made it easier to do.”
Graham swore he would never see Diane again, but within days he had secretly moved her into his summer home in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
One afternoon a few days later, Bonnie took their son, David, to the Fillmore West to see his father. They were waiting in his office when LaChambre casually strolled in.
“She was wearing a see-through blouse with nothing underneath,” said Bonnie. “It was like what’s this nerd doing in my face? I had David with me and she wanted to see the baby. I thought, ‘Get away from me you awful person.’ ”1
Bonnie was heartbroken, finding it hard to comprehend how much Bill had changed in the four years since he had entered the world of rock ’n’ roll.
“He had been a very straight arrow,” she explained. “And I kept that image of him for a long time. It took years for me to understand that he had become something different. Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll is not the best way to live.”
On Thursday, January 9, 1969, Led Zeppelin made their San Francisco debut at the Fillmore West as the opening act for Country Joe and the Fish. Bill Graham paid Jimmy Page’s new band $2,500 ($17,000) for four nights. Within three months Graham would be paying them five times as much when they next played on the West Coast for him again.
“We were an opening act on the first tour,” said Led Zeppelin road manager Richard Cole. “We did such good business that [Bill Graham] gave us a cash bonus.”2
Soon after Led Zeppelin first played the Fillmore West, Bill Graham sent Santana into the studio to record some tracks. He asked his friend David Rubinson—who had worked with Latin musicians before—to produce the songs in an effort to score a record deal.3
Then Graham suggested a three-way partnership between him, Rubinson, and his lawyer Brian Rohan to set up two record companies—Fillmore Records and San Francisco Records, which would be distributed by CBS and Atlantic Records, respectively. Rubinson agreed and moved his family to San Francisco to run both of Bill Graham’s record companies.
To get Santana a record deal, Graham first invited Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun to the Fillmore West to see them play.
“Ahmet sees the band take the stage,” said Santana road manager Herbie Herbert, “and the place is sold out and the crowd loves them. But Ahmet says, ‘There’s nothing there. I’ve got conga players on fucking St. Marks Place on the Lower East Side that can smoke that guy.’ ”4
Later, Carlos Santana would claim to have deliberately thrown the Atlantic audition. He dreamed of being on Columbia Records.
“They had Miles Davis, The Electric Flag, and Bob Dylan on their roster,” explained Carlos later. “I had heard stories about Atlantic from The Young Rascals and other people who weren’t happy with the distribution or the royalties.”5
When Santana next played the Fillmore West, Clive Davis of Columbia Records was there at Bill Graham’s personal invitation. He loved them.
“You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that Carlos was a virtuoso guitarist,” said Davis. “They were feisty. They were real. They looked good. You were dealing with the real deal. So I operate from the gut and I said yes, right on the spot.”6
A few days later, Santana signed with Columbia Records and went into the Pacific Recorders Studio in San Mateo, California, with David Rubinson producing. But the sessions did not go well.
“There were a lot of internal problems,” explained Rubinson. “They had reformed.”
Santana’s conga player, Marcus Malone, had recently been arrested for murder, and drummer Doc Livingston had been so drunk at the New Year’s Eve show at Winterland that he’d fallen off his stool during the set.
A few weeks later, Livingston was fired by the band during a studio rehearsal. And as he walked out of the studio, he passed a nineteen-year-old drummer named Michael Shrieve, who was hustling free studio time.
The young drummer was a longtime fan of Santana. He had first seen Carlos several years earlier, playing a church hall near his home in Redwood City, California.
“I just stumbled onto them at some church hall,” Shrieve remembered, “and I really enjoyed them so much I told my brother, ‘I really want to play with these guys.’ ”7
Then in September 1968, Shrieve was at the Fillmore West for a Super Session with Michael Bloomfield, Stephen Stills, and Al Kooper and sat in on drums for a couple of songs.
Backstage, Santana’s manager, Stan Marcum, was impressed, telling the teenager they needed a new drummer and even taking his number.
“But I never heard from them,” said Shrieve, “but when I walked into a recording studio when they had a falling out with their drummer, [they] remembered me from that night.”
Carlos Santana then invited him to jam with the band to see how he fitted in.
“We played for hours,” said Shrieve, “and at the end of that period they pulled me into a room and asked me to join the band.”
Carlos and Gregg Rolie then drove him back to his parents’ house in Redwood City.
“I woke up my parents and said, ‘See you later,’ ” said Shrieve. “I packed a few things, got in the car with them and drove
up to the city to Bernal Heights and took my place on the couch. That’s how I got in the band.”
When Shrieve joined Santana they stopped recording, instead beginning an intense couple of weeks of rehearsals and gigs.
On February 13, Santana headlined four nights at the Fillmore West and introduced their new drummer. Michael Shrieve, who had hung out at the Fillmore as a fan for years, was nervous when he walked onstage to loud boos.
“The first show at the Fillmore was a huge thing for me,” said Shrieve. “I remember the people booing because they were a popular group and their drummer was gone. I thought, ‘Oh, boy. This is not how I want to be greeted at the Fillmore.’ ”
But after playing a mesmerizing drum solo on “Soul Sacrifice,” the Fillmore West audience warmed to him.
“I got a standing ovation,” he said, “and after that it was fine.”8
Each day, Santana would rehearse in the studio before going to the Fillmore West to hear music. Michael Shrieve soon bonded with Carlos Santana and the other members of the band.
“Santana as a group was no hippie love thing,” explained Shrieve. “This was like a street gang, but the weapon was music. If you messed up they were all over you. It was pretty serious.”9
When they went back into the studio for another attempt at recording, producer David Rubinson was unhappy with the results, which failed to capture the Santana magic.
“It wasn’t great,” said Rubinson. “I was very disappointed in the recordings.”
When they finally finished the album and gave it to Columbia Records, Clive Davis rejected it, saying it was no good.
“They blew it off,” said Herbert, “and the band broke up right there on the spot.”
After Janis Joplin had bombed at the Stax Christmas Show, Mike Bloomfield came in to tighten up the band. At the beginning of January, musical director Bill King fled to Canada to avoid the draft, with trumpeter Marcus Doubleday quitting soon afterward. So their replacements had to learn the Janis Joplin set from scratch, while Janis and Sam Andrew wrote new material.