00:00:00.940 - 00:00:17.790

outlined that they even gave me, they made up the whole prospective what to do about the fillmore Hungarian film, a street sit here sunday gospel dance and black politics, monday dance, drama, education, Tuesday electrical R. And B. Dance concert Wednesday's dance drama workshop, thursday dance drama

00:00:17.800 - 00:00:45.260

showcase friday R. And B. Dance concert, saturday jazz, black jazz I'm saying show and saying the problem is if you stand, you know, if you stand and you say, you know, mhm. Financially you're ballrooms are probably the most successful in the country. Follow that. You must

00:00:45.270 - 00:01:06.410

be a financial success. Success to now. Money is not usually associated with the rock world. How does this affect your relationships with those people? And we have the place is clean ah the production that we go into the the special um work that we do for

00:01:06.410 - 00:01:22.540

the groups to enhance the the the overall concept. It's rather expensive. We don't have one sound and we have three sound men, we don't have one little girl in the office. It's followed through. We have things that continued, that was started some years ago to start

00:01:22.540 - 00:01:37.930

this whole thing that I still continued. And uh it's not for the money, the monetary reason. And as uh business associates that I had before I came to work here when I worked for a regular industrial firms uh said you know Bill, you started this years

00:01:37.930 - 00:01:47.540

ago giving away posters at the end of the dance, we give them away free in the store, you would have to pay a dollar, but he will give them to you for next week's dance, which advertises our next function. We also give away the apples in

00:01:47.540 - 00:01:57.560

the lobby. And they would say, well bill, you know, years ago you had started, now that you're successful, you don't have to do that anymore. But that's like in a good restaurant, taking off the the greenery off the plate. You know that people are gonna come

00:01:57.560 - 00:02:15.840

there. Why? And things don't have to be so clean. Well why not? We're making a very good dollar. So instead of netting X on that X minus 300, whatever, we still make very good money. But if we didn't make very good money, then we couldn't also

00:02:15.930 - 00:02:25.560

assume the losses we do incur sometimes when we bring in something that we know isn't going to make money, but we want to present it to the public and sometimes we'll bring in the grand, I'll act like the staple singers. For example, the first time they

00:02:25.560 - 00:02:36.490

came in, first of all, it took me two years to convince pops to play. He says, oh I don't know those white audiences are, they're not gonna dig our gospel music. And not until the place had a reputation did he think that well, I should play

00:02:36.490 - 00:02:51.260

it because then, you know, we'll get it will be good for us also and they make a good dollar. The staple singers at that time, they weren't worth draw wires because the dollar is based on the draw power. They weren't they wanted the price that they

00:02:51.260 - 00:03:08.130

would get in a normal gospel church concert. I gave them that price even though I knew that they wouldn't draw that relative, you know, in ratio if we didn't make profits somewhere along the line, we couldn't do that. We couldn't have once the we show thanks

00:03:08.130 - 00:03:23.800

to the city, which is if I say again to that boy, we're just nice people and only that I'm lying. The so called hip community still criticize you for making money off. Let's just call their music. I would say yes, but the criticism is less is

00:03:23.800 - 00:03:41.270

less and less, but the criticism is still there because I think what's happened over the years, it's it's it's it's just all coming full cycle now. Yes, but okay, we'll both agree that fillmore east and West are top ballrooms in the country, I'm sure. So from

00:03:41.270 - 00:03:57.190

there, what do you, what do you do now? What do you do next? Good question. We were far from having these two places running as well as we would like to on our floor here at the film where we're putting up to at the ends of

00:03:57.190 - 00:04:13.220

the dance floor. We're putting up to basketball, professional basketball boards and hoops regulation and we want to involve the community and we're going to challenge other nightclubs, other ballrooms. We're going to challenge the rock and roll bands because we're not just hippies were not just rock

00:04:13.220 - 00:04:24.040

and roll operators. I dig playing ball. I never got a chance to play ball anymore. And I want, I want to knock heads with some of these people. I like some of them. I don't like some of them, A lot of them have grievances against me.

00:04:24.050 - 00:04:47.940

Okay, let's, instead of yelling and screaming at each other. Let's do it out there. That to me is a major project. I have to catch you there. Okay, Hold on Base. E 21 too much. I don't want to take a rain check. I don't want to

00:04:47.940 - 00:05:07.250

stall you and stall you. I got to wait until I get to new york on monday. I'll call you on monday in new york. What is your number there? Yeah. Mm hmm. Okay. On monday, I'll give you my word. I'll call you okay. In the world

00:05:07.250 - 00:05:23.610

of rock music. You're known as the King Producer. How do you think you got this title? Uh, first of all, I don't like it. I don't like the implication of King. I think we've, as far as the reputation of the organization has gotten our our family

00:05:23.620 - 00:05:41.680

thing is, I think we put on good shows and change the musical taste of the people who come here and if that reputation has been enlarged, that's good, more people are listening to less bad music. There's a lot of people that put on good shows, but

00:05:41.680 - 00:06:01.720

they don't draw crowds. There must be something different about what goes on here at fillmore. Hopefully, you know, we're talking about credit and what we've done. Hopefully it's because we present good entertainment within the framework of of an environment which is not the, which wasn't the

00:06:01.720 - 00:06:20.910

norm until you know and articles about life in general, the news of the day posters and the artwork on the walls, the light show of course. Uh the barrels are the barrel of apples in the lobby. Uh, these aren't gimmicks, but it's, it's like, what was

00:06:20.910 - 00:06:35.830

that? There was a program on tv calculated to keep you in suspense years ago. This is calculated to hopefully uninhibited the inhibited san Francisco and to operate in san Francisco somehow or other people here are I'm not, I'm a new yorker ah quite different than san

00:06:35.830 - 00:06:51.960

Francisco. We talked about doing, you got all kinds of groups and all kinds of elements together so that people end up having a good time. Did you work at this? And we're just lucky and it just happened here and it's a combination of the city the,

00:06:52.940 - 00:07:08.250

but what we're happy about besides just the success of the ballroom and the relationship, we have the community and the kids that come in the bands and the managers and the agents and whatnot is to have had the opportunity to bring in talent two, the people

00:07:08.250 - 00:07:27.560

who come here which was never presented to, I just started here at least in music in the black community even involved with black musicians and so on. What's your relationship been to black militants and the black community that you just can't rather touchy subject. Uh, we

00:07:27.560 - 00:07:44.180

used the fillmore auditorium in the Fillmore district, a predominantly black community for many years. And uh then we begin to have street problems. They're heavy street problems because of the martin Luther king assassination and the Kennedy assassination. There wasn't any trouble there with the black militants

00:07:44.190 - 00:08:05.170

in the streets. Uh, the young, the 14-16 or 17 youth of that area somehow begin to retaliate for the death of The one White man. They believed in nationally Kennedy and Martin Luther King's death and it got to be very, very difficult. But I was disappointed

00:08:05.170 - 00:08:17.550

in that. I then went to some members of the black community asked for some help and we had our problems and things got worse and worse and worse. And we have done some benefits for a couple of years ago, Stokely carmichael. And when Eldridge was in

00:08:17.550 - 00:08:32.370

trouble before the early part of his problems, we did some benefits with him and Kathleen did some benefits with the black panthers just to help them set up a proper administration not to buy guns or ammunition. Ah then when we needed help, we did not ask,

00:08:32.370 - 00:08:52.190

we asked for help from them. I didn't get any cooperation. Um, did some benefits in new york with the black panther organization. Also, I'm sorry to say that I disagree with their mode of operation. I disagree with like any human being basically disagrees with violence. I

00:08:52.190 - 00:09:10.650

think they have the rights that I have. I don't want to get into. You know, do I think they're my equal? It's a ridiculous thing to even get into. I do not agree with ah modern action by anyone. Ah as for the black community. When we

00:09:10.650 - 00:09:20.920

left there, certain members of the community said mr Graham, you know, you've made your living here, you made a lot of money, you're moving downtown now, would you help us set up a black community theater of some sort? And I said, yes, what do you want

00:09:20.920 - 00:09:34.810

from me? He said, well, can you help us administratively financially and so on? I'd love to like a long story short, there was a body of people that I even have their brochure here perspective. Is this what we want to do on monday night gospel singing,

00:09:34.810 - 00:09:45.680

Tuesday night, black history, thursday night soul dancing, friday night so and so and so and so I said, that's fine. Uh which way do you want me to help? Can you help us get the acts and set up the administration? Then? Some members of the black

00:09:45.680 - 00:09:58.370

community said, well he should be all black, it should be administered entirely by the black. That's up to you. What do you want from me sis can you pay the rent if I pay the rent, I should know how you're going to spend this money? He

00:09:58.370 - 00:10:09.130

said, no, well man, where are you at? Either do it that way. I said, I think that's wrong. But I'll let you, I'll let you sink your own way. Make a long story short for five months. For four or five months. I paid the rent there

00:10:09.140 - 00:10:22.280

all the rent from july through october, something like that. And I'm sorry to say that that length of time. I think they ran to benefits for the panthers. And I finally said it's not that I can't do without the money. If I said to you, I'm

00:10:22.280 - 00:10:35.640

going broke because I'm supporting you. I'm lying. But you know, I put water on the sea and I don't see any flower. Something's wrong somewhere. And make a long story short. I said, I said, I'm not going to support you anymore. Now there are some other

00:10:35.640 - 00:10:41.150

people in there who are making attempts, but it's so easy to stay community and legislation