Bill Graham Presents

I just read the autobiography Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock And Out and I have to say that Graham led one spectacular life. I was interested in learning about how concert promotion is done, but Graham’s life went far beyond that.

Graham was a Holocaust survivor who was spirited out of Germany to France and then to America. Graham spent time as a youth in an upstate New York orphanage, where he became dejected after repeatedly being passed over for adoption. Some say that drove his need to feel loved, which he worked to do every day of his life. He always gave the extra effort, which made the musicians he worked with very happy but often annoyed the musicians’ managers, who paid for Graham’s largesse.

Graham had an extraordinarily keen business sense, which showed itself early in his life. When he signed up for Army duty in the Korean war, he put this ability to use by selling food from his troop transport ship’s galley to other hungry soldiers. He also ran gambling on the ship. Any time he saw a need, he was angling for a way to fill it and make a profit.

Graham also spent time working in the resorts in the Catskills mountains. He worked as a waiter during the day and ran the gambling games at night. The gambling income gave him a taste of the good life.

Graham wanted to be an actor and worked a few plays but never got far with it. It was through his acting work that he got a taste for concert promotion. The acting troupe he was with, the Mime Troupe, needed to raise money and Graham organized a concert benefit. He soon left acting behind to concentrate solely on promoting concerts. The rest is history.

When I first got this book, I joked that it would be an education in sex, drugs, and rock and roll. While there was plenty of rock and roll, there was very little sex and drugs. Graham didn’t care for drugs and always considered himself a pretty square guy. While I’m sure he had groupies, his book doesn’t go into much detail about this. Graham frequently was seen by musicians who knew him as a “New York businessman:” very straight.

The book is over 600 pages of quotes from Bill, his siblings, business associates, musicians, and others. The voice changes constantly which makes it sometimes tricky to remember who is doing the talking. I liked that the co-author, Robert Greenfield, often balanced Graham’s bragging about an incident with a counter-view from another participant. In this way, the book isn’t so much autobiographical as it is semi-autobiographical. One gets a clearer picture of Graham through these multiple viewpoints.

A few of the later chapters are devoted to the tours and the bands Graham helped promote. The Grateful Dead were one of his first, as were Jefferson Airplane; Santana; Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and others. Pete Townsend of The Who had great things to say about Graham, as did Eric Clapton. The Rolling Stones took some time to warm to Graham but did three tours with him (the fourth, 1989’s Steel Wheels tour, was done by a rival – which broke Graham’s heart).

The biggest surprise for me was the chapter on Led Zeppelin. Like many kids who grew up on classic rock, I’ve always been a fan of Zep. Graham’s book changed my mind about this band with his account of the incident involving band manager Peter Grant in Oakland as part of the band’s 1977 tour. Grant’s bratty son was caught swiping plaques from trailers backstage by one of Graham’s security guys, Jim Matzorkis. Grant became incensed at this and he and his security goons beat the living daylights out of Matzorkis. Graham’s team wanted to even the score but had to settle for misdemeanor assault charges and a follow-up lawsuit. Graham was never satisfied with the outcome and blames Grant for the evil aura which enveloped the band during that time.

Graham went on to promote Live Aid, Amnesty International, and other huge concerts. He died in a helicopter crash in 1991 at the age of 60.

There are a lot of colorful anecdotes in the book: Graham obviously loved to tell a story. It is, however, a bit short of the nuts and bolts of concert promotion. A huge part of Bill Graham’s success was his personality. There are plenty of ways to succeed in concert promotion but it will never be done again the way Bill Graham did it.