Bill Graham was a music promoter and a tough cookie.  As a  Jewish kid growing up in W.W.II Germany, he soon learned the ins and outs of survival.  His mother and sister were gassed by Nazis.  At the tender age of nine he trekked across Europe alone and found his way to Portugal and Casablanca finally landing in New York where he ended up in an orphanage. 

After serving in Korea, he worked as a New York cab driver before coming to San Francisco.  It is here where I found some rather interesting facts that would take center stage for my next novel (Don't Stop the Music).

Charles Sullivan was a player and the top black music promoter west of the Mississippi during the fifties.  He had turned the Fillmore District of San Francisco into Harlem of the West. After-hours jazz clubs featured Miles Davis, John Handy, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk and so many more. Then one night in a dark alley in August, 1966, Charles Sullivan was found dead under very mysterious circumstances.  The police ruled it a suicide, but the locals figured it was just another move by the powers-to-be to tear down the district.   Sullivan had bequeathed Graham his dancing license for the Fillmore Auditorium, but the young entrepreneur’s efforts to renew the permit were stonewalled.  Tough and determined, Graham blackmailed a crooked cop by taking pictures of him entering a brothel across the street from the dance hall. And that, as they say, was only the beginning.  The remainder to be revealed in Don't Stop the Music.

Keep the rhythm going, baby!

The Irish ruled San Francisco in the sixties.  Judge O'Connor was responsible for the juvenile justice system, Tom Cahill was chief of police while Jack Shelley occupied the mayor's office.  All was as it was apparently meant to be.  Until 1966.  The mysterious death of George Sullivan seemed to trigger an avalanche of racial tension.  167 dissidents were arrested for picketing the Sheraton Palace Hotel's failure to hire blacks.  180 civil rights demonstrators were hauled downtown for illegal sit-ins at Wessman Lincoln-Mercury and Cadillac dealerships.  A riot broke out in the Fillmore District after a white officer shot and killed a sixteen-year-old African American for fleeing the scene of a stolen car.  The Black Panthers commandeered the local laundromat.  The National Guard was brought in to restore order, an order that was once defined by distinct boundaries, where everyone stayed within their own piece of dirt. 

The Redevelopment Agency ran Geary Boulevard under Fillmore Street so that white commuters could bypass any "trouble' on their way to their glass cages in the financial district.  The wrecking ball found its target on the backsides of some two thousand painted ladies as well.  The Victorians were left to rot where they fell.

Absentee landlords took advantage.  In one building, four different families (sixteen persons total) alternated shifts living in a one bedroom apartment, the other three families making do in the nearby rubble for a night or two.  And there was no toilet.  Don't let the cops catching you pissing in the street.  Better do your business at the gas station down the block.

Despite the chaos, George Sullivan had left behind a legacy that would endure, a legacy that was to be carried on by none other than a Jewish boy from New York. "Harlem of the West" was on life support, but the music prevailed.  At Mario Sullivan's speakeasy (George Sullivan's brother), John Handy played in the backroom of the barbecue rib joint, training other jazz artists to keep the sound alive.  Up the street toward Geary it would not be unusual to find Leola King boarding a tour bus, promising a free drink if they took a chance to venture into her Birdcage, a cabaret with live music and the best chicken-in-a-basket.   Another fixture in the hood was basketball great, Nate Thurmond, driving his Silver Shadow, dressing up the neighborhood.

Bill Graham pushed hard to establish the Fillmore Auditorium as a respectable concert hall.  Downtown was concerned that such an establishment would draw too many kids from the Richmond and Sunset Districts.  The potential for further trouble was palpable. 

Scruffy bearded young men wore tie-dye headbands while their dates swayed to the music in their heads, their loose fitting blouses drenched in patchouli oil.  Bill policed the ticket line at the Fillmore Auditorium himself, manhandling drug dealers and pickpockets.  Once inside, you climbed a staircase to a giant room festooned with chandeliers and bands of colored lights.  Free apples awaited in a nearby ice bucket while an attendant passed out complimentary posters of that night's entertainers.  The passageway toward the stage would be laced with the sweet scent of Mary Jane.  Billowing clouds spiraled into the dust-mite air, cardboard-tube bongs standing at attention. 

Jerry Garcia might be the opening act for Jefferson Airplane while Peter Coyote of the Diggers would protest the idea of charging money for such heavenly music.  Backstage, the house punch would be spiked with Owsley's acid and the electric Kool-Aid night was officially underway.