Bill Graham, the rock concert promoter, was born 90 years ago today.
Graham was a German-American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death in 1991 in a helicopter crash.
In 1941, he was sent from Germany to France to escape the Holocaust. At age 10, Graham settled in a foster home in the Bronx, New York. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School and from City College with a business degree. In the early 1960s, he moved to San Francisco, and, in 1965, began to manage The San Francisco Mime troupe.
Graham teamed up with local Haight Ashbury promoter, Chet Helms, and Family Dog. They used their network of contacts to organize a benefit concert and later promoted several free concerts. This eventually turned into a profitable full-time career and he assembled a talented staff.
Graham created the Fillmore and Winterland Arenas — proving grounds for rock bands and acts of the San Francisco Bay area including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin.
Graham was killed in a helicopter crash west of Vallejo, California on October 25, 1991, while returning home from a Huey Lewis and the News concert at the Concord Pavilion. He had attended the event to discuss promoting a benefit concert for the victims of the 1991 Oakland firestorm.
Flying in severe weather, with rain and gusty winds, the aircraft flew off course and too low to the ground over the tidal marshland north of San Pablo Bay. The Bell Jet Ranger flew directly into a 223-foot high-voltage tower near where Highway 37, which runs between Vallejo, California and Marin County, California.
The helicopter burst into flames on impact, killing Graham, pilot Steve Kahn and Graham's girlfriend, Melissa Gold, ex-wife of author, Herbert Gold.