![]() By February of 1966, Jefferson Airplane was headlining the first non-benefit concert at the Fillmore for Graham-during that year, Balin’s band would play more than 30 dates at the hall. A second benefit at the Fillmore Auditorium, also featuring the Airplane, followed that December. That fall, Balin encouraged an ambitious impresario named Bill Graham to host a benefit concert for a theater group Graham was managing, offering up Jefferson Airplane for the occasion. Those two acts would have been enough to secure Balin’s place in music history, but the singer was just getting started. “You could predict how a show would go according to the drugs lined up on the back of the amps.” That’s because in 1965, Balin undertook two inextricably linked projects that together changed rock-music history-he helped open a small but highly influential club called the Matrix, and he founded a new band, Jefferson Airplane, which played its first gig on his club’s opening night. To be sure, the city’s greatest concert promoter, singer, and guitarist all deserve their status as cultural icons, but it was another guy whose name you might not immediately recognize, Marty Balin, who drew the world’s attention to San Francisco in the first place. Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia-half a century on, these names still evoke the sound of San Francisco in the late 1960s.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |