At least according to Wes Wilson, a psychedelic poster pioneer who helped define the rock poster aesthetic of the 1960s, iconic rock promoter Bill Graham wasn't as cool a guy as you might think. Of course, Bill isn't around to tell his side of the story though. From Ben Marks' interview with Wilson over at Collectors Weekly:
I had signed a contract with Bill. I'd been copyrighting my posters, so he said, "We've got to work out a contract." By that time, people were starting to collect posters, so we sat down and worked out a deal. We signed and initialed it. His attorney was supposed to clean it up, make a copy, and then we were going to re-sign it. It was all officially approved, but it was kind of messy because it had all these handwritten notes on it.I was going to get a 6 percent royalty on it, which was pretty good. I knew what was going on at that point. But then he broke the agreement right away. An article came out in "Time" magazine reporting that he'd sold 100,000 posters. So I said, "Look, Bill, I want to see more of my royalties. I'm due $6,000, just for that one thing." He got all upset, and we went from being friends in the morning to being enemies that afternoon.
I was with a couple other people when we went to confront him that day. We were ready to see the books. When things went badly, we agreed to go and fight it out outside. Bill Graham said okay to that, and as we walked out the door onto the sidewalk, Bill quickly turned around, locked the door behind him, and disappeared up the stairs. From that day on, he continued to cheat me out of lots of money by not honoring our honestly agreed-to and mutually signed agreement. Of course, I went to a lawyer, then a couple of lawyers, and they all basically said, "Oh, my God. You left your signed contract in Bill's trust. You don't even have a copy of your own; you might as well just forget it."
On the last poster I did for him at that time, I was so mad that I added a snake with a dollar sign in its mouth. Bill had shown himself to be a lying crook rather than an honest person. That was an unfortunate choice on his part, but it was his choice nonetheless. That's how I lost all of my respect for Bill Graham.
"Psychedelic Poster Pioneer Wes Wilson on The Beatles, Doors, and His Breach With Bill Graham"
