Relix

October 1966: the Grateful Dead have no album. No Warner Bros. deal, no studio recordings, no national profile beyond the Haight and the people who'd been showing up to Fillmore shows all year. What they have is the room, and Bill Graham put them on a two-night stand at catalog number 32, sharing the bill with Lightnin' Hopkins, the East Texas blues titan whose fingerpicking style and storytelling directness ran as a deep current through everything Jerry Garcia was developing as a guitarist.The pairing isn't incidental. The Dead's roots in country blues, jug band music, and the rural American folk tradition were always present beneath the psychedelia, and here, five months before their debut album would introduce them to the world, they're on a bill with one of the living masters of that lineage. Hopkins and Garcia in the same building in 1966 is a collector's footnote that deserves to be a headline.At catalog number 32, this is Wes Wilson deep in the early Fillmore run, his psychedelic typography still crystallizing into the style that would define the era.Second edition, Good condition (13½ × 22 in.), corner imperfections consistent with age and period handling, honestly graded and priced accordingly. A poster-only lot documenting the pre-album Dead at their most purely local and alive.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 32 | The Grateful Dead | The Fillmore October 21–22, 1966 | Wes Wilson | Second Edition

Before Janis Joplin had an album. Before Syd Barrett left Pink Floyd. Before Santana’s debut existed. Before “Light My Fire” hit number one. These shows happened, and Bill Graham printed the paper to prove it.“The Sound: Fillmore &amp; Winterland Originals, 1966–1970” is twenty-one lots drawn from a single private archive — posters, handbills, and tickets spanning the foundational years of San Francisco rock. Wes Wilson’s psychedelic typography. Bonnie MacLean’s post-Wilson authority. Lee Conklin’s dense, intricate hand. Rick Griffin at the height of his powers. And the bills themselves: the Grateful Dead across six years of Fillmore history, Cream on leap day 1968, the Doors the night “Light My Fire” went to number one, Pink Floyd’s first and only American tour with Syd Barrett.These are the documents from before the records existed. Graham called it The Sound. This is what it looked like.

The run opens on February 29, a date that only exists every four years, and that accidental rarity fits the moment. Disraeli Gears had been out for three months, "Sunshine of Your Love" was climbing the American charts, and Clapton, Bruce, and Baker were at the absolute height of their powers as a live unit. The May 1968 breakup decision was still months away. This four-night stand at the Fillmore and Winterland is prime Cream, no asterisks.Lee Conklin's design arrives at a high point in his Fillmore tenure, dense, intricate, his hand immediately recognizable to any serious BG collector.This lot is honestly cataloged as an incomplete set. The anchor is a third-edition poster in Excellent condition, clean and fully displayable at 13 7/8 × 20 15/16 in. Accompanying it: a single original ticket from opening night, February 29, grading Very Good, a leap-day artifact that stands on its own. The handbill covers the full four-night run, grading Good at 4 3/8 × 6 7/8 in. Three pieces, one run, no complete ticket set, priced accordingly.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 109 | Cream | The Fillmore & Winterland February 29–March 3, 1968 | Lee Conklin | Third Edition

December 1969: Live/Dead had been in the world for barely three weeks when the Dead walked back into the Fillmore West for this four-night run. Widely regarded as one of the greatest live albums ever committed to tape, its release marked the moment the Dead's reputation for transcendent improvisation became impossible to ignore outside the cult. These December shows are the immediate follow-through. the band at their most confident, the room already buzzing with what the record had just documented.Sharing the bill: Humble Pie, the British outfit formed earlier that year by Steve Marriott, fresh off the Small Faces, alongside a young Peter Frampton, making serious early inroads with American audiences. The pairing of San Francisco's hometown icons with one of London's most promising new rock acts gives this four-night run a genuine transatlantic charge.Designed by David Singer, BG 205 is a first edition, 14 × 22 in. Condition grades Good: tack holes at the corners, creases consistent with period display, this poster lived on a wall, exactly as intended. Priced accordingly for its grade, it remains one of the most accessible entry points into the Dead's Fillmore West catalog.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 205 | The Grateful Dead, Humble Pie | The Fillmore West December 4–7, 1969 | David Singer | First Edition

The image on this poster became one of the most recognizable in rock history, not just as a Fillmore artifact, but as the basis for Santana's self-titled debut album cover. Lee Conklin's snarling lion's head, with its hidden faces and flowing figures, was so arresting that Santana asked him to rework it directly for the record. The album wouldn't drop until 1969. This poster is from before any of that, Santana still building their Fillmore reputation, the artwork not yet carrying the weight it was about to carry.The bill runs deep. Steppenwolf had released "Born to Be Wild" just weeks before this run, it was already climbing the charts, already soundtracking the summer. The Grateful Dead close out the full six-night engagement on the back half of the run.One transparency note for the collector: this is a fifth-edition printing of BG 134. First editions command significantly higher premiums, original first printings can easily command over $5,000 in top preserved states. This copy grades Excellent at 14 × 20 in., clean and fully displayable, and represents a legitimate way to own one of the most culturally resonant images in the entire BG series at a condition-appropriate price point.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 134 | The Grateful Dead, Steppenwolf, Santana | The Fillmore West August 27–29, 1968 | Lee Conklin | Fifth Edition

Two days. That's how long the Grateful Dead's self-titled debut album had been in the world when this show happened on March 19, 1967. Their first record on Warner Bros., the one that introduced "Golden Road" and "Cream Puff War" to anyone outside the Haight, had just landed, and the Dead walked back into the Fillmore to share a bill with Chuck Berry, the man who handed rock and roll its vocabulary in the first place. The generational handoff implied in that pairing is as rich as it gets.This is Wes Wilson in his prime Fillmore period, one of the Big Five poster artists, the designer who essentially invented psychedelic typography, his Art Nouveau-inflected letterforms already redefining what a concert announcement could be. BG 55 is among his later contributions to the BG series before his departure from the Fillmore later that year.Second edition, Very Good condition (13½ × 20 9/16 in.) — clean and displayable, with the honest wear of nearly six decades. A poster-only lot, priced for its grade.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 55 | The Grateful Dead | The Fillmore March 19, 1967 | Wes Wilson | Second Edition

Before the album. Before the Summer of Love. Before Monterey. In December 1966, the Grateful Dead were still almost entirely a San Francisco phenomenon, and Bill Graham put them on a three-night bill that tells you everything about what the Fillmore was doing culturally.Big Mama Thornton, the Texas blues titan who wrote "Ball and Chain," shared a stage with the Dead just six months before Janis Joplin's Monterey performance of that same song changed everything. Tim Rose, whose recording of "Morning Dew" directly shaped the version the Grateful Dead would make one of the most anticipated moments in their live catalog for the next three decades. Three nights, three wildly different musical lineages in the same room, all pointing toward something the world hadn't quite named yet.Wes Wilson at catalog number 41 — early in the BG series, his psychedelic typography was still finding its full voice. Second edition, Very Good condition (14 × 22⅛ in.), clean and fully displayable. A poster-only lot that documents one of the more historically resonant triple bills of the entire Fillmore era.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 41 | The Grateful Dead | The Fillmore December 9–11, 1966 | Wes Wilson | Second Edition

Eight weeks before Monterey Pop transformed Janis Joplin into a national phenomenon, she was still playing three-night stands at the Fillmore, this time opening for one of the architects of the electric blues. Howlin' Wolf, whose "Smokestack Lightning," "Spoonful," and "Back Door Man" ran through the DNA of virtually every band playing the Fillmore circuit, headlining alongside the band that was about to change everything. The generational transfer happening in that room across three nights in April 1967 is as loaded as any bill in the series.One collector's note on the poster itself: Wes Wilson, working at pace, spelled the headliner's name "Howling Wolf", the extra "g" a documented production quirk that has become part of BG 60's identity among collectors.Worth knowing for the record: BG 60 was printed once. Every surviving copy is a first edition, no reprints were ever produced, making this a single-pressing artifact with no secondary market to dilute it.First edition, Very Good condition (14 × 23¾ in.). Clean, displayable, honest age-appropriate handling. A poster-only lot that catches Janis Joplin at the Fillmore in the last quiet weeks before everything changed.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 60 | Howlin' Wolf, Big Brother & The Holding Company | The Fillmore April 21–23, 1967 | Wes Wilson | First Edition

May 1967: the Grateful Dead's debut album has been in the world for seven weeks, Monterey Pop is six weeks out, and the Summer of Love is about to detonate San Francisco into the national consciousness. This two-night stand at the Fillmore catches the Dead at the precise hinge point, a recording band now, but still playing the room that made them, right before everything went irreversibly wide.Supporting acts worth noting: The Paupers, the Canadian outfit who would share the Monterey bill with the Dead just six weeks later, making this an early document of that festival's orbit.BG 62 is Wes Wilson working deep into his Fillmore tenure, by mid-1967 he would depart following a dispute with Graham over royalties, making his later BG numbers among the final artifacts of one of the defining designer-venue relationships in American rock history.Second edition, Good condition (14 × 23 in.), corner creases consistent with period handling, honestly graded and priced accordingly. A poster-only lot. For the Wilson completist or the collector building the Dead's pivotal 1967 Fillmore run, BG 62 lands at a genuinely significant moment in the calendar.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 62 | The Grateful Dead | The Fillmore May 5–6, 1967 | Wes Wilson | Second Edition

One week after this run, Monterey Pop happened, and The Doors weren't on the bill. Deliberately excluded, as the story goes, for not fitting the peace-and-love image of the festival. While Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother played to the world at Monterey on June 16th, The Doors had just finished two nights at the Fillmore that by all accounts were as intense as anything they put down that year."Light My Fire" was climbing the charts in real time during this run, still six weeks from hitting number one, but already pulling the band out of the underground and into something wider. The June 9–10 Fillmore stand sits right at that hinge. The room knew it was watching something shift.One documented footnote: during these shows, Morrison accidentally caught Bill Graham in the head with a twirling microphone. Graham received a hand-painted helmet as an apology before the next Doors Fillmore run in July.Bonnie MacLean's design comes in her post-Wilson period of full authority over the Fillmore's visual identity. Third edition, Very Good condition (14 × 23 in.), a single corner ding at bottom right, otherwise clean and displayable. Priced for the grade.Domestic (United States) shipping is included in the purchase price. International shipments will be subject to additional shipping costs, to be invoiced after the auction is completed.

BG 32 | The Grateful Dead | The Fillmore October 21–22, 1966 | Wes Wilson | Second Edition

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