by John Glatt
At the beginning of July, Bill Graham had given an interview to Howard Smith for his WPLJ-FM Sunday radio show, describing himself as “a volunteer madman.”
“You live in an eat or be eaten society,” he told Smith. “It’s the ugliest business I’ve ever known. I don’t know if any business has more shady characters in it. Maybe the underworld?”
Asked if money had changed him at all, Graham reminisced about his early days running the Fillmore with Bonnie at his side. He painted a picture of an idyllic relationship, even though his marriage was now falling apart because of his infidelity.
“At that time Bonnie was working in the office with me,” he told Smith, “and now she’s with the baby. On some obscure Wednesday night I’ll get through at nine o’clock and I’ll call her. I’d say, ‘All right put on some slacks and we’ll take a ride to Mill Valley and have dinner.’ And if we go to the country and we have some wine and we have a fillet. If the waiter comes back and says, ‘Mr. Graham, I’m sorry there are only two fillets left but they are two specials that we’ve saved for the last nine hundred years and they’ll cost you $10,000.’ I’ll say, ‘Bring it.’ That’s luxury.”
He also discussed his love of Latin music, which he was now channeling into Santana.
“I was one of the authentic Latin American mambo freaks of New York City,” he declared. “And when my old lady isn’t home I have to admit to dancing in front of the mirror sometimes. I get very freaky.”
Then Smith asked for Graham’s reaction to accusations that he was “exploiting the lifestyle,” and ripping off the music fans with high prices.
“Isn’t it ironic that Bill Graham is knocked for making all this money,” he replied. “Is it ever questioned what Joe Superstar makes. Does anyone say, ‘Hey, Jim Morrison, why don’t you give me some of your money?’ ‘Hey, Jimi Hendrix.’ ‘Hey, Rascals.’ ‘Hey, Simon and Garfunkel.’ They make a lot of money. They’re entitled to it for a very simple reason. Why should the promoter get it all?”3
Everything was about to change in the concert promotion business, with the balance of power shifting from the promoter to the artist. The new rock festivals had started drawing thousands of fans as well as the biggest concert names. Last summer’s Newport Pop Festival in California, with Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, had pulled in an estimated 140,000 fans. And the previous December’s Miami Pop Festival with the Jimi Hendrix Experience had drawn 50,000 people.
Eager to jump on the bandwagon, ambitious young promoters like Michael Lang were now lining up an array of festivals in Atlanta, Denver, Toronto, and Atlantic City. These were all a direct threat to Bill Graham, who could see the writing on the walls of both his Fillmores.
After The Doors had snubbed the Fillmore East in favor of Madison Square Garden, Jimi Hendrix had followed and Janis Joplin would not be far behind.
There was also what had happened after Memorial Day weekend, when Led Zeppelin had played three sold-out shows at the Fillmore East with Woody Herman and Delaney and Bonnie opening. Graham had also booked the band for the Rose Palace, Pasadena, during the West Coast leg of that tour, several weeks after playing another four shows at the Fillmore West.
But in late July, Graham discovered that Led Zeppelin planned to play Carnegie Hall on their next tour that fall, bypassing the Fillmore East.
He immediately fired off a letter of protest to Zeppelin manager Peter Grant in London. It was dated July 31, 1969—just two weeks before the Woodstock Festival.
Dear Peter:
During a conversation today with Frank Barsalona, I learned of your intention of putting Led Zeppelin into Carnegie Hall in New York sometime in October.
Needless to say, I have no right to tell a manager what to do with his artists. However, I do have a right to speak my piece; which is what I intend to do now. I never cease to be amazed at the lack of ethics of this wonderful business that you and I are involved in. You, Peter, asked me for the extra money regarding the Rose Palace engagement, and you got it. But more important than anything else, you needed and used the Fillmores to build Led Zeppelin to a headline attraction, and now you honestly can feel that there is nothing wrong in not giving the act back to us; now that you no longer need us. Supposedly.
Tell me, if every manager takes your point of view, when the Fillmores are there to expose the new Led Zeppelins of our business to the mass audience, shouldn’t the star Led Zeppelins continue to play the Fillmores so that we will be there to expose these new groups—the Led Zeppelins of tomorrow? Even if I wasn’t the producer here, I would wonder why Hendricks [sic] and The Doors play the Garden, where the sound is abominable. And why would you prefer to play Carnegie Hall. Is it really so disgraceful to play the Fillmore for two nights and earn a mere pittance of $25,000?
Don’t you think the Fillmores should be supported?
The reason I put this directly to you is because I find myself falling into a very dangerous position now. We are building acts to a level of great notoriety and then they go on and play the big money houses. There was a time in this business when the top price was around $10,000 a night. In our houses you can make that kind of money, but you get more than that. You get quality production and I wonder if that still means anything to you, Peter. If nothing else, wouldn’t it be proper that, regardless of the huge coliseums you would play all over the country, that Led Zeppelin does continue to support the two or three places that were there when Led Zeppelin needed them, i.e. the Fillmores, the Kinetic Playground, etc.?
And I’m not just talking about Led Zeppelin. I’m talking about Hendricks [sic], The Doors and all the other giants of this ethical business we are in.
I should like an answer to this letter from you at your earliest convenience. I will reiterate that no one can tell you how to run your show, but in my opinion, it is this kind of inconsideration on the part of managers that would help to put places like the Fillmores out of circulation. And then where would you be in America?
Cheers,
Bill Graham4
On August 19, Peter Grant replied via a Western Union telegram.
DEAR BILL:
THANKS FOR YOUR LETTER OF JULY 31. THIS IS PROBABLY NOT GOING TO BE GRAMATICALLY CORRECT AS IT IS COMING STRAIGHT FROM THE TOP OF MY HEAD AS IT COMES, SO HERE GOES. OF COURSE THERE IS NO QUESTION OF THE FILLMORE’S BEING THE BEST RUN HOUSES IN THE STATES WITH SUPERIOR SOUND AND LIGHTING. THAT IS FOR OPENERS. AS FOR BEING ETHICAL AND FAIR HOW ABOUT WHEN JEFF BECK HEADLINED THE FILLMORE EAST FOR $5000 FLAT AND SELLING OUT FOUR SHOWS. AS A THANK YOU TO YOURSELF FOR BEING THE FIRST TO BOOK HIM IN THE STATES. WHAT ABOUT LED ZEPPELIN THE SECOND TIME IN SAN FRANCISCO WHEN WE WORKED OUT A PERCENTAGE AFTER WE FINISHED THE DATE. WERE NOT THOSE FAIR TO YOU? BUT WAS IT FAIR TO THE LED ZEPPELIN AT THE ROSE PALACE WHEN YOU RENEGGED ON THE DEAL? I DID NOT ASK YOU FOR EXTRA MONEY I ONLY ASKED YOU FOR WHAT THE ACT WAS ENTITLED TO ON THE ORIGINAL DEAL WE MADE AND WHO SAID LED ZEPPELIN WOULD NOT PLAY THE FILLMORE ANYMORE? COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN, MY FRIEND. WE TRIED VERY HARD TO WORK OUT A DATE ON THE COAST THIS SUMMER. AS FOR THE MONEY QUESTION WHEN YOU WERE MANAGING JEFFERSON AIRPLANE YOU WERE NOT TOO BASHFUL TO ACCEPT $15,000 A NIGHT FROM PROMOTERS. HOW ABOUT THE FORTUNE YOU MADE FROM THE KIDS WITH THE SALE OF YOUR POSTERS. WHEN LED ZEPPELIN ARE OFFERED MORE IN A GUARANTEE FOR TWO NIGHTS AT THE PAVILION, ONE SHOW PER NIGHT THAN THEY CAN MAKE ON FOUR SELL OUTS FOR YOU AM I SUPPOSED TO TURN THAT DOWN? HOW ABOUT THE FACT THAT JIMMY PAGE SUPPORTED THE REST OF THE GROUP FOR THE FIRST SIX MONTHS. HE NEVER HAD A DIME OUT OF THE GROUP FOR THIS PERIOD EXCEPT FROM HIS RECORD EARNINGS. LET ME TELL YOU BLEW A LOT TO ME WHEN YOU TRIED TO WELSH ON THE ROSE PALACE DEAL AND TOLD FRANK BARSALONA TO TELL ME TO DROP [THE] DEAL AND NOW YOU SEEM JUST AS BRAVE AT THE TOP OF THE TYPEWRITER AS YOU DO BY PHONE AND YOU WILL NEVER STOP SENDING COPIES OF YOUR LETTER TO AARON RUSSO, DON LAW, FRANK BARSALONA, UNCLE TOM COBBLY AND ALL. I DID NOT KNOW YOU COULD STOOP SO LOW TO TRY AND ATTEMPT TO PUT ME DOWN.
PETER
GRANT5
Soon afterward, Bill Graham inserted a clause into all his contracts excluding bands from playing Madison Square Garden if they wished to play his Fillmores.
Although Bill Graham liked to project the image of the happily married family man, he was still seeing Diane LaChambre. Their relationship was a tempestuous one, and he was obsessed with his beautiful young mistress.
“She didn’t wear underwear,” said Chris Brooks, “and she would flash him and do all sorts of things to get his motor running. He was just being a man. We felt sorry for him because she was using him . . . and apparently he was paying her rent.”
Once, Graham discovered Diane with a musician in a dressing room at the Fillmore West.
“I remember Bill standing outside the door of the dressing room,” said Brooks, “while she was inside screwing somebody from some band. Just standing there with his arms folded and his face red. Then she came out and she turned red, and Bill gave her this look, turned on his heel and walked away.”6
Over the summer, LaChambre made two suicide attempts after Graham tried to break up the relationship. Then she became pregnant and he paid for an abortion.
After one bitter argument, she had blackmailed him for a large sum of money, threatening to go public with their relationship. After Graham paid up, she bought some expensive clothes and then threw the rest of the money off the Golden Gate Bridge.7
By all accounts, things had slowed down for Bill Graham financially. His boom years were between 1965 and 1968, and by 1969 an economic recession had cut into his profits. The Fillmore audiences had changed, too, graduating from marijuana and acid to speed, downers, and heroin.
As the San Francisco scene began to collapse, Graham became the scapegoat. All the hostility against him finally surfaced with the great San Francisco Lightshow strike. After Graham refused to pay the San Francisco light shows $900 a weekend with equal billing with bands, they picketed a Grateful Dead concert.
“There was a virtual fistfight,” said Chet Helms. “The Dead are a pretty physical bunch of people and there were a couple of punches thrown. Jerry Garcia showed up while this was erupting and we both managed to calm things down and persuade the leaders to go across the street to the beach and talk.”8
Garcia, Helms, and a delegation of strikers then crowded into the back of the Grateful Dead equipment van to discuss the matter. A meeting was then arranged for the following Tuesday at the Family Dog hall.
Bill Graham was among the three hundred people at the meeting, as the light show members were threating to picket the Fillmore West that night.
“You do not tell me what to do,” Graham yelled, jabbing his finger at them. “Where the fuck does the artist come to say, ‘you the businessman must support us,’ when I personally think the light shows are not producing an income for me?
“The only way you can do this is to kill me and step over me. I will never have anyone tell me . . . what I must pay a light show.”
The self-appointed leader of the light show union, Stephen Gaskin, then cast himself as Graham’s prosecutor in some kind of weird courtroom scene.
“When you started,” declared Gaskin, “you had to make a choice between love and money. You’ve got our money, so you can’t have our love.”
Trembling with emotion, Graham stood up and defended himself, recounting his days in the Holocaust and his struggle to survive in the Bronx and how he started his own business.
Then Gaskin accused Graham of being a fraud, saying had just quoted a speech verbatim from an Eli Wallach movie.
“I apologize, motherfucker, that I’m a human being,” yelled Graham with tears in his eyes. “I fucking apologize. Emotional—you’re fucking right. You think I’m an actor? You’re full of shit, man. I have more fucking balls than you’ll ever see. You want to challenge me in any way about emotions? You slimy little man . . . you slimy little man.”
Graham then stormed out, trailed by an astonished Time magazine writer who was writing a profile on him.
On his way out, someone tried to calm him down. Seething with anger Graham hissed, “Don’t get peaceful with me.”
His publicist, Chris Brooks, who was at the meeting, said she was shocked to see everyone turn on Graham.
“Bill had tears in his eyes. He hurt,” said Brooks. “He sat there while they called him a capitalist pig and kept attacking him. He kept trying to explain his position. He’s a businessman. He’s not a hippie.”9
The next day, Graham announced he was leaving San Francisco forever.
“This town has never stopped rapping an honest businessman for four fucking years,” he told Rolling Stone. “I leave here very sad. I may be copping out but your attitudes have driven me to my decision.”
On Friday, August 1, Santana debuted at the Fillmore East, third on the bill to Canned Heat and Three Dog Night.
“They were very humble when they came,” recalled Allan Arkush, “and I remember getting them a lot of food, because I realized this was going to be their main meal of the day. They were great and beloved among the staff.”10
That weekend’s Fillmore East playbill had a double-page advertisement for the upcoming Woodstock Music and Arts Fair, with the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Santana billed for Saturday, August 16. The Jefferson Airplane, who would headline Saturday night, were missing from the advertisement, as they were playing the Fillmore East the following weekend.
The Atlantic City Pop Festival—held the first weekend of August—had an almost identical bill to Woodstock’s two weeks later. The Friday-night headliners would be Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Winter, and Santana Blues Band, as the poster mistakenly read. Jefferson Airplane and Creedence Clearwater Revival topped the bill on Saturday, with Janis Joplin closing the festival Sunday, where she would sing a duet with Little Richard.
A couple of weeks earlier, Sam Andrew had played his last show with Janis at the Forest Hills Music Festival. He then flew back to San Francisco, as Janis made her first appearance on the Dick Cavett Show. Wearing a red crushed velvet shirt, a large gold necklace, and a faraway look, Janis seemed subdued. When the genial Cavett asked what she had done “to kill time” since they had last met, Janis said she had been working.
“We went to Europe,” she said. “Scared them to death, I think.”
“Did you have fun?” asked Cavett.
“No,” Janis replied, “I had a terrible time. Nobody really gets loose and nobody rocks over there. They’re all so cerebral.”
Then Cavett asked if it were still possible to sing the blues if you were making several hundred thousand dollars a year.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with money,” she said, “or it really shouldn’t. Playing’s just about feeling. Playing isn’t necessarily about misery. Playing isn’t necessarily about happiness. But it’s just about letting yourself feel all those things that you have already inside you, but you’re all the time trying to push them aside because they don’t make for polite conversation.”
All the hard drinking and drugging were beginning to take their toll on Janis, and her performances were suffering.
“[Those] Kosmic Blues years,” said John Cooke. “That’s the only time that Janis’s drug use affected her performances. It wasn’t any fun anymore.”11
At the end of July, John Morris invited Janis to stay at his house in the Virgin Islands so she could clean up her act for Woodstock.12
Before leaving, Janis called Albert Grossman and swore she would sober up in the Caribbean. But nine days later, when Myra Friedman collected her from the airport, she immediately noticed that Janis was the same ghostly pale as she had been before leaving.
“It rained every day,” Janis explained.13
Jefferson Airplane rocked the Fillmore East the weekend of August 8 and 9, the band’s fourth appearance there. On Friday night the Airplane’s second set we
nt on well past four o’clock, and Saturday’s finished even later.
After the final set, the Airplane had played two encores and the crowd were still applauding and screaming for more. Then Bill Graham came out onstage, suggesting they remain silent for a minute. He then went backstage and offered to carry Spencer Dryden out on piggyback. The drummer got on his back and Graham brought him out and placed him on his drum stool for the Airplane’s third encore.
It was at these shows that Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady unveiled their new offshoot band called Hot Tuna.
“The Hot Tuna thing just evolved,” Kaukonen explained. “We’ve known each other for a long time, and we’ve been playing together in hotel rooms and just sort of fooling around. Hot Tuna didn’t really exist and then at the Fillmore East someone said, ‘Why don’t you guys play a couple of songs?’ I think we might have played ‘Embryonic Journey’ and ‘Hesitation Blues.’ And then we got back with the band and played and the crowd liked it. So in a way Jefferson Airplane introduced what was to become Hot Tuna to the world and allowed us to do that.”14
Paul Kantner says that he suggested Hot Tuna open for the Airplane that night.
“Yeah, I encouraged that,” he said. “And it probably led to the breakup of the band eventually.”15
On Sunday, Jefferson Airplane headlined another Graham-organized free concert at the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. Santana opened the show and were joined onstage by Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady to play for a couple of blues numbers.
Later, in a review in the “Riffs” column in the Village Voice, Don Heckman wrote that Grace Slick had not been at her best at the Fillmore East shows.
“Unfortunately, the pressures of non-stop flying are taking their toll,” he wrote. “The Airplane is beginning to look and sound tired. Grace Slick sang more consistently out of tune than I have ever heard, and Spencer Dryden seems to be wearing himself out.”