BG-43 Otis Redding, Grateful Dead 1966 Fillmore Concert Poster Graded 9.8. ...

Description

BG-43 Otis Redding, Grateful Dead 1966 Fillmore Concert Poster Graded 9.8. First-printing San Francisco concert poster for Otis Redding playing three mid-week shows at the Fillmore Auditorium on Tuesday-Thursday, December 20-22, 1966. The Grateful Dead opened for The Big O on Tuesday night, making this a top-tier double-legend poster. Redding's current single for Stax/Volt was the Top 5 R&B hit "Try a Little Tenderness," which would bring the house down at Monterey Pop the following summer. Designed by Wes Wilson and known as BG-43 in the Bill Graham numbered series, this was graded a hugely respectful 9.8 Near Mint/Mint by CGC (the Certified Guaranty Company). Measures 14" x 22 5/8".

Nobody had a bigger underground buzz nor more admiration among S.F. musicians than Otis Redding, still six months away from his star-making turn at the Monterey Pop Festival. Being mid-week shows, many musicians like Janis Joplin were hanging in front of the stage, watching his every move. Luckily Otis still had a full year to live, but it would all end tragically in December 1967.

According to Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (DK Publishing, 2003, co-authored by Dennis McNally), "Otis Redding wouldn't achieve huge pop success until Monterey Pop, but to those in the musical know, he's the man. So Bill Graham books him for three nights at the insistence of various Fillmoreans, including the Dead and Janis Joplin."

Another reason this was a special appearance for Jerry Garcia & Co.: the day before the Dead's appearance opening for Otis, they received their first widespread national press exposure. Newsweek magazine, all but forgotten now but a major media force for decades, crowed about the band, calling them second in S.F. popularity to only the Jefferson Airplane. "[The band is] blues-oriented, and so far unrecorded," the article stated. "Their hard, hoarse, screeching sound is pure San Francisco." Perhaps that doesn't sound like much in hindsight, but at the time it was enormous, respectful exposure for the group because of Newsweek's clout.

On Wednesday night it was Johnny Talbot and De Thangs, a local R&B institution who had played the Fillmore when it was still a Black-music venue booked by Charles Sullivan before Graham came along. Talbot opened for everyone at the time - the Dead, Hendrix, Janis, Muddy, Chuck Berry, the Four Tops and Martha & the Vandellas among them. They can be found as an opening act on many S.F. concert posters, most recently at the Fillmore on BG-26 and then on the upcoming BG-55.

And on Thursday night Berkeley's Country Joe & the Fish, starring Joe McDonald, were the opening band. December '66 was a special month for them, as they had just signed with Vanguard Records. Up until now they'd not released any singles or albums through a record label, but they'd pressed up two self-produced EPs on McDonald's Rag Baby label (named after his underground magazine): 1965's primitive, acoustic "Talking Issue #1 (Songs of Opposition)" and 1966's more commercial, electrified "Country Joe and the Fish," containing the popular "Section 43."
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