The Wailers (60's) Poster
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 pre-concert 1st printing bears union logo 72 in the lower left corner and measures 13 15/16" x 19 15/16". All subsequent printings omit the union logo.
2nd printing A is printed on smooth stock and has pale orange and blue colors. "Printing by West Coast Lithograph Co. SF" is printed vertically in the lower right hand margin. This poster measures 13 13/16" x 20 3/16" and was printed after the concert.
2nd Printing B is on coarser more textured stock. It retains the "West Coast" credit but the orange and blue are darker and richer than in the 2nd Printing A version. It was also printed after the concert and measures 13 3/4" x 20 3/16".
The post-concert 3rd printing is on white stock with a blue reverse and measures 14" x 20 1/4".
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.