Bill Graham the Ultimate Rock Impresario

Bill Graham was instrumental in establishing San Francisco as the epicenter for the psychedelic rock music sounds of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin and many other greats. Graham, (Wulf Wolodi Grajonca, a Jew born in 1931 in Berlin) was truly a self-made man, surviving the Holocaust and coming to the US as a penniless orphan child.  We’ll examine his beginnings in the San Francisco hippie scene and his emergence as the all-time master rock promoter utilizing the Fillmore Auditorium, Winterland, the Fillmore West and other venues for mind blowing live concerts. The presentation will include videos of Graham describing the incredible and incomparable 60’s scene as well as some of the top bands whose careers he helped to launch.  

Rodney Paul is a guide who has led thousands of people on walking tours including Haight Ashbury, Oracle Park, the War Memorial Opera House and the Salesforce Transit Center. In 2017, he created a series of rock music programs in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love that were presented in libraries throughout the Bay Area.  When COVID began, he converted these programs and material from his other tours to Zoom. Now these programs are offered in-person once again. Rodney has lived in the Bay Area since 1986 and became a guide in 2015 after a career in the software industry. He excels at public speaking, and his presentations and tours are interactive and fun.