BILL GRAHAM (1931 - 1993) Biography - Theater, Opera and Movie personalities

 
 

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BILL GRAHAM (1931 - 1993)
       

Rock music promoter and manager, born in Berlin, Germany. His Russian-Jewish parents fled the Nazis, and in 1941 he arrived in the USA, becoming a citizen in 1953. He served with the US Army in Korea, then drove a taxi to pay for his business studies. In 1965 he began as the manager of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and moved on to present rock bands in concerts in his own venues, first a San Francisco club hall renamed the Fillmore, then the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco renamed (1967) the Fillmore West.

       

A mixture of hard-driving entrepreneur and idealistic counter-culturist, by 1968 he was so successful with his concerts that he opened the Fillmore East in a former film theatre in New York City. In 1971 he closed his theatres, and shifted to managing various groups and stars and promoting large arena concerts and tours, many of them featuring the biggest names in popular music, such as the Rolling Stones. Throughout the 1980s he continued to produce various concerts, including a special ‘fourth of July’ rock concert in Moscow in 1987.