Elvis Presley would have turned 89 years old today. (So does that make him the oldest artist to have a Top 20 Billboard Hit? "Blue Christmas" reached #18 on last week's chart. (And, since it was first released in 1957, it may qualify for a couple of other records, too ... but I doubt it ... since Billboard only counts songs charting after the debut of their Hot 100 Chart in August of 1958.) Incredibly, it charted for the very first time in 2018 when it went to #40 for a week. (kk)
Also celebrating a birthday on January 8th is the late Bill Graham ...
Harvey Kubernik sent us this piece to run ...
Bill Graham (from a Harvey Kubernik 1976 interview)
Recognized as one of the most influential concert promoters in history, Bill Graham (1931-1991) launched the careers of countless rock & roll legends in the 1960s at his famed Fillmore Auditorium and was a prime mover behind the 1967 Summer of Love.
Graham conceived of rock & roll as a powerful force for supporting humanitarian causes and was instrumental in the production of milestone benefit concerts such as Live Aid (1985) and Human Rights Now! (1988).
As a promoter and manager, he worked with iconic artists including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Fleetwood Mac, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, and the Rolling Stones.
The first show Graham presented in San Francisco was on November 6, 1965: a fundraiser to support the legal defense of one of the Mime Troupe actors.
It was a transformative moment for the then thirty-four-year-old, who’d finally found something he was good at by which he could also earn a living. Soon afterwards he took over the lease on the famed Fillmore Auditorium, where he produced groundbreaking shows throughout the 1960s, including sold-out concerts by the Grateful Dead, Cream, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Doors, among many others. Graham’s mastery at promoting, marketing, and managing artists propelled him to become one of the music industry’s most important figures.
For the August 21, 1976 issue of the now defunct Melody Maker, I conducted an interview with Bill Graham inside Graham’s house in Mill Valley, Ca.
Around his concert promotions and productions, Bill was hectic and frantic. But at his pad it was a mellow scene.
Harvey Kubernik: Bill, can you remember your first meeting with Carlos Santana and Jerry Garcia?
Bill Graham: I met Jerry in 1965. He was doing the acid tests. I thought he and his entire band were from another planet. I was very disturbed at those first parties because — and there’s a lot of differences in opinion — grown-ups as well as kids were testing their metabolism. I was producing theater in San Francisco at that time, where the group was still the Warlocks, doing benefits involving these groups. I got to know him later on.
Carlos was in 1967. I had the Fillmore in San Francisco, and (Paul) Butterfield was playing. My office was right above the marquee. There were windows over the marquee and you had to go through that door in my office on the second floor to change the lettering. Anyway, I’m sitting in my office in the middle of the night and heard some noises outside my window. I went to the window to look outside and there are two guys who climbed up a rain pipe to get to the second level to get it. It was Carlos and Michael Carabello, who was a conga player friend of his.
They were trying to get in to see Butterfield. He told me he was Mexican and liked Latin music, and my real joy in life is Latin music. We started talking and he said he had some musicians, and I said let me hear them — and that’s how we met. Besides, being a nice player, the thing I like the most about him, and respect the most, is that in the area of business, it’s not that he gives me carte blanche, but that he listens. The Bay area is a conglomeration of professional rejects from the rest of the world, actors, who couldn’t make it, dancers who couldn’t make it.
Before Woodstock, if you had a hit album, 700,000 or 800,000 units. Today, an album will sell three million units and there won’t be any headlines. How can you retain the quality of the soup when you add water?
Kubernik: Is there still a viable San Francisco music scene? It looks like there has been a rebirth the last few years with groups hailing from up north: Doobie Brothers, Journey, Tower of Power.
Graham: There was never a San Francisco sound, or a Boston sound. They may do the same thing to an audience though, which is give them pleasure.
There is something that they’ve [Grateful Dead] always had in common from the beginning, something hardly spoken about in the media after all these years. The San Francisco bands, starting with the Dead, always went to the gigs with the intention of putting it out there. It was the lack of professionalism at the beginning that made that possible. It wasn’t that the contract said 45 minutes and ‘that’s what we’ve got to play.’ They were the first one who asked to play longer. They wanted to extend the relationship between the audience and themselves. And that prevails to this day. You can’t get them to play shorter sets. Carlos always wanted to play longer which is very different from the professional attitude that you get.
One of the reasons for that - and Jerry won’t say it - is you get a man like this who can make all kinds of money across the country. The Grateful Dead just came off the road, and he has a desire to play, and he takes his band and plays a club that holds 400 people! When you go out, you want to make music and you want to make a living. There are times when I really think the Grateful dead are demented. Insane. They could have made ten times as much money.
Kubernik: Do you feel parental about some groups or individuals you’ve got close to over the years, Bill?
Graham: Words are thrown around - brother, sister, parental. All I know some ten years ago they think I’m a very good business man. I think I know how to deal with people, but not a very good business man. I think I have some idea about music and what the streets are all about, and about what downtown is all about. I was a New York energy freak to some extent, and I still am. But I found out every mile didn’t have to be four minutes. I didn’t have to catch that plane. If you would have told me ten years ago that I would someday live under trees, I would tell you you’re crazy. I learned this from the Bay area, from the feeling in the Bay area.
Jimi Hendrix once came late for a show. I’m pacing in front of the Fillmore, and he gets out of the cab, and I’m yelling at him, and he looked at me and said ‘There was this great movie on in the motel.’ Little by little, it took me four or five years to learn this. I finally realized that after the gig I could do the yelling. In the long run it’s the public that has to get the good energy from them. I really sincerely feel this, is that the reason the relationship lasted over the years, is that those of us who live in the Bay area and lasted over the years have always had the same goal. We want to turn people on and we want them to have a good time.
That’s the dilemma a musician has. A musician may think he played a shit set, and the audience out there is going crazy.
Kubernik: Rock and roll has moved into the big arenas. Was that the logical extension from the Fillmores and even the ballroom circuit?
Graham: You can’t get any bigger, Man, has reached the largest securable facility. The reason Woodstocks don’t work is that you can’t put up walls. You can put cement around a stadium. Okay, if you want a couple of hundred thousand people, there are no facilities that large except for cocker. It’s been proven that if you can put up a fence to contain 450,000 people, how do you stop the other 200,000?
Kubernik: Could you predict the vastness of the present concert situation?
Graham: Yes, and I must be honest at the same time and cop to the fact that a lot of the things I was putting down predicting what would happen, did happen, and I joined the ranks. We may have created the ranks and everybody joined them. Basically, what it amounts to is supply and demand. The artist’s theory is that “my life is so busy now,” and he would like to be with the luxuries life has afforded him. If the Dead could spend one night in San Francisco playing a big gig instead of three smaller shows, the next two nights are theirs to be in their home or with their lady. That’s the key; it’s not that they want to play less. In the summer of 1973 or ’74, we took Crosby, Stills Nash and Young, who came to us and said, “we want to play a lot of indoors and outdoors dates,” We did a 31 city tour. Seventeen of those dates were in ballparks. That was the beginning. The logistics could work.
Kubernik: Who is your favorite rock & roll performer?
Graham: Otis Redding. The single most extraordinary
talent I had ever seen. A six foot three black Adonis in a green suit, a black
shirt and a yellow tie who moved like a serpent or a panther stalking his
prey.
And let's not forget that David Bowie shared a birthday with The King ...
As did Little Anthony!
So did Robby Krieger and Dame Shirley Bassey ... Terry Sylvester of The Hollies and sexual abuser / golden showers aficionado R. Kelly ... as well as Luther Perkins, one of Johnny Cash's Tennessee Three!
From Tom Cuddy ...
The Eagles return to iconic California venue for a night of tributes, cameos, and peaceful, easy feelings ...
kk …
Around 7 PM EST on Saturday Night, Cousin Brucie Will Be Talking To Connie Francis on WABC 77 AM.
Do You Think He'll Play "FRANKIE?"
Contrary To Popular Belief, The Song Wasn't About Frankie Avalon (Or Me.)
I Heard Connie Say In An Interview That The Name Frankie Was Randomly Picked By Sedaka / Greenfield.
She Says That She Has Something Exciting In The Works -- But She Can't Talk About It Now.
Cousin Brucie Asked Connie How Long We'd Have To Wait For This Exciting News.
Connie Said About Six Months. She Said That She's Enjoying Her Retirement.
It Took Her Father George 1 1/2 Years To Talk Her Into Recording "WHO's SORRY NOW."
What's Connie's Favorite Of The 2800 Songs She Recorded? "MAMA."
Another Song Her Father Picked --- That She Didn't Want To Record.
When You Stop To Think About It , Without Her Father's Guidance, She Probably Wouldn't Have Made It.
She Would've Passed On Two Of The Best Hits Of Her Career.
Brucie Asked Her What Career Choice She Would've Made If She Didn't Become A Singer.
Connie Said She Probably Would Have Studied Psychology.
Any Guesses About Her Exciting News?
Can't Be A Book ... She Already Did That.
FB
P.S. --- " FRANKIE " Made The Connie Francis Hits Medley Cousin Brucie Played After The Interview.
Connie’s biography is a GREAT read!!!
If you get the chance to call in (or she happens to mention it), find out when Part Two is coming out … I’ve been waiting for it for YEARS!!! (kk)
>>>Is it just me, or does everyone have to sign up for a Box account to be able to hear all your audio posts? (Jon M)
>>>People seem to be having much more difficulty playing the music of late – and I’m not exactly sure why. (I can only assure you that if something changed, it changed on Box’s end, not mine … I’m still posting the same way I have been for the past 25 years!) Whenever that happens, try refreshing your screen (F5) – I think you’ll find that that usually works. (kk)
A few months ago, I started to experience the same issue. Ever since you suggested to me pressing the F5 Key once, it solved the problem!
CB ( which stands for "Cleared-It-Up Boy!" )
>>>How many of Barack Obama’s Pick Hits for 2023 did you add to YOUR iPod??? (kk)
“Try that in a Small Town" … on repeat. Radio wouldn't touch it. Sort of like Barry McGuire's "Eve Of Destruction" or Janis Ian's "Society's Child" in the '60's." (Ed Erxleben)
Well, we certainly played them in Heavy to Regular Rotation at KIMN in Denver in their Days! Two of my least favorite songs. Became forever included "backup go-tos" in my personal on-air playlist list of "Bathroom Break Songs" along with "Stairway to Heaven" and the Beatles’ "Long and Whining Road!" ( sic )!
CB
(I hereby christen thee Commode Boy) kk
