From Publishers Weekly
Bill Graham, the flamboyant rock concert promoter whose life, as depicted here, was a quest for sex, drugs, megabucks and stardom, arrived in the U.S. as a penniless eight-year-old refugee in 1939. Born Wolodia Grajonca in Berlin, he lost his father to a construction accident when he was two days old and his mother to Auschwitz. In a fast-moving, colorful and well-researched portrait of the king of rock promotion, who died in a helicopter crash in 1991, freelance journalist Glatt limns an abrasive, hot-tempered impresario derailed by cocaine, sleeping pills, ego and self-doubt, who slept with a girlfriend while his wife Bonnie MacLean went into labor with their child. Filled with cameos of Janis Joplin, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and other stars, this ultimately depressing bio profiles Graham as a hip and versatile capitalist who ultimately became an anachronism, unable to mesh with the new age of MTV and video rock.
From Library Journal
Graham came to the United States from Germany in 1941 in order to escape the Holocaust. At ten years of age he began a new life growing up in a foster home in the Bronx. From this tragic and modest beginning, Graham became the premier rock'n'roll concert promoter and a multimillionaire. In San Francisco, Graham founded the legendary Fillmore concert hall that was the proving ground for early 1960s bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. As a key figure in the glamorous concert scene through three decades, Graham suffered the attendant problems of drug addiction, failed relationships, and greed. He died in a helicopter crash in 1991. Based on extensive research and interviews, this book is a well-written and fascinating account of the life of one of rock music's enduring personalities. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
- Tim LaBorie, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. |
