The Wailers (60's) Handbill
The careers of The Wailers and Quicksilver Messenger Service overlapped, but had little in common. The Wailers started out in 1958 as an early American garage band. Their name was also their sound, but the band held onto their sax and organ sound too long and disbanded by 1969. Quicksilver, formed in 1965, rode the rock band wave until 1973, but made a few marketing decisions that eventually cut them out of recording contracts and the public eye.
The handbill was printed once in black ink on tan paper with union logo 221 stamped below "Graham" in the bottom left hand side. It was printed before the concert and measures 5 9/16" x 8 9/16".
When the Avalon Ballroom and Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium began to hold weekly dance concerts, Wilson was called upon to design the posters. He created psychedelic posters from February 1966 to May 1967, when disputes over money severed his connection with Graham. Wilson pioneered the psychedelic rock poster. Intended for a particular audience, "one that was tuned in to the psychedelic experience," his art, and especially the exaggerated freehand lettering, emerged from Wilson's own involvement with that experience and the psychedelic art of light shows.