Bill Graham (promoter), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Bill Graham (promoter)

German-American impresario and rock concert promoter

Date of Birth: 08-Jan-1931

Place of Birth: Berlin

Date of Death: 25-Oct-1991

Profession: entrepreneur, impresario, talent manager, concert production, music promoter

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Bill Graham (born Wulf Wolodia Grajonca; January 8, 1931 – October 25, 1991) was a German-American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death in 1991 in a helicopter crash.
On July 4, 1939 he was sent from Germany to France to escape the Nazis.
At age 10 he settled in a foster home in the Bronx, New York.
Graham 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.
He had teamed up with local Haight Ashbury promoter Chet Helms and Family Dog, and their network of contacts, to organize a benefit concert, then promoted several free concerts.
This eventually turned into a profitable full-time career and he assembled a talented staff.
Graham had a profound influence around the world, sponsoring the musical renaissance of the '60s from the epicenter, San Francisco.
Chet Helms and then Bill Graham made famous the Fillmore and Winterland Arena; these turned out to be a 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, who were first managed, and in some cases developed, by Chet Helms.