Santana sings ‘so long’ to Graham
Here is a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1991
Oct. 29: Guitarist Carlos Santana wrenched his face into the music and let his guitar sing farewell to impresario Bill Graham, the man who took the skinny Latino from the Mission to Woodstock and on to rock stardom. The notes pealed like bells, as Santana plunged into “I Love You Much Too Much,” a song from the 1978 album “Zebop,” the one album that Graham produced. At Temple Emanu-el yesterday, for Graham’s funeral, Santana poured his soul into the piece. “There has never been a more beautiful benediction heard in this temple,” said an obviously moved Rabbi Kirschner. About 2,000 mourners filled the synagogue . ... World-famed musicians rubbed shoulders with former backstage guards. Wealthy socialites and old hippies cried softly into handkerchiefs as the Beatles recording of “Here Comes the Sun” opened the services. Actor Dan Aykroyd accompanied Mike Klefner, a Graham associate from the Fillmore East in the ’60s. Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun sat next to Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner. New Yorkbased Latin bandleader Tito Puente, Graham’s personal favorite, made the trek, and members of the Grateful Dead showed up with bassist Phil Lesh in suit and tie. “He goes to the opera a lot,” explained his band-mate Mickey Hart, wearing a T-shirt. “Bill’s a part of what we are,” said Jerry Garcia, “and we’re carrying a piece of him into the world without him.”
— Joel Selvin
1966
Oct. 27: Attorney Melvin Belli urged the city yesterday to build the controversial Washington Square underground garage. “I have a romantic feeling about San Francisco and its past,” he said, “and I certainly don’t want to do anything to destroy this wonderful park in front of an old and beautiful church.” But, he added, the park can be rebuilt and the North Beach and Telegraph Hill areas vitally need parking space if people are to be able to move in and out of the area.” Belli was the star attraction at a press conference called by the North Beach Merchants and Boosters almost beneath the trees of the old park. The meeting-in-the park also provided a forum for a clash between the old North Beach establishment and a lonely representative of the new wave of the bearded who have made North Beach their home. Donald Cochrane, a lanky bearded artist living in the area, asked innocently which trees would be restored and which torn up by bulldozers. “You came here to create trouble,” shouted Mario Renzi, city gardener at Washington Square. “If he don’t get out I’ll give him the hose and give him a bath.”
1941
Oct. 29: Although the Navy’s superb morale makes it the finest military organization in the world, it may soon have to lower its physical requirements because there are not enough fit young men to man the ships that are coming off the ways. And if America does not institute a compulsory system of physical training in its schools, it will be faced with a generation of weaklings. This is the opinion of Lieutenant Commander Gene Tunney, U.S.N.R, head of the navy’s physical training program, Shakespearean student and former heavy weight champion of the world. Tunney then cited the fact that 45 per cent of the navy’s applicants are rejected because of weak eyes and bad teeth. “The navy is getting more dentists,” he said yesterday at the Commonwealth Club, “and we may be in a position to do some remedial work. But it is not properly our job.” Calling for a “revolutionary change” in methods of physical conditioning in American schools, Tunney said that athletics are not enough. “In school athletics there are a few doers and a vast majority of ‘sitters.’ ”
1916
Oct. 23: “Blicker” Murphy, the last of the ostriches at Golden Gate park, described by Sergeant Magee of the Park police as a romantic old bird, no longer squints his single eye at visitors nor does he contemptuously view the buffalo galloping about their paddock. Recently there were eighteen ostriches in the zoo. They were sold and the veteran Blicker was the last taken away. He was roped a few days ago and shipped to Japan. His protests were violent, his indignation indescribable, and the fight he put up before his removal was “a peach.” Kicks from his iron legs sent two attendants into the dust. Blicker became a great admirer of Genevieve, the big emu, after the death of his mate several months ago, and lost his eye in a battle on account of the emu. He was the only bird in the pen that could manage Genevieve. The emu also has a violent temper and bites hunks of hair and hide out of the buffaloes whenever opportunity offers. It was because of prospect of separation from Genevieve, says Sergeant Magee, that Blicker so strongly resented eviction from the park.