R.I.P.: Jim Rissmiller, Former L-A Concert Promoter

Jim Rissmiller

For a generation of Southern California music fans, the phrase “Wolf & Rissmiller Presents” was synonymous with live performances by the cream of the crop of rock and pop music superstars, from the Rolling Stones to Elton John.

The L-A Times reports Rissmiller died Wednesday in Cleveland of a stroke at the age of 76, said now-retired veteran promoter Larry Vallon, who worked as a junior partner at Wolf & Rissmiller before eventually launching his own companies.

Rissmiller partnered with Wolf in 1967 and Los Angeles radio personality Bob Eubanks to begin promoting concerts in and around Los Angeles under the name Concert Associates.

Within their first year, they pulled off the first sold-out concert at the Inglewood Forum — an Aug. 16, 1968, show with Diana Ross & the Supremes. Wolf and Rissmiller were 26 at the time. The Forum and Madison Square Garden in New York quickly became the west-east cornerstones of the nascent arena-rock concert business.

They sold Concert Associates to Filmways Corp. in 1969, when Eubanks wanted out to focus on his burgeoning career in television, but continued promoting under the Concert Associates banner, until their contract with Filmways expired in 1975. During that time, they booked the Who into Anaheim Stadium in 1971, the first of many blowout rock concerts at that venue.

That’s when they created Wolf & Rissmiller, putting on many historic and some of the most lucrative concerts of the era, including record-setting extended runs at the Forum in Inglewood with Jethro Tull and Elton John, as well as milestone shows with the Who, Pink Floyd, Queen and numerous others.

Along with the established stars Wolf & Rissmiller presented, they also handled smaller shows by emerging acts, recognizing the need to help develop the stars of tomorrow.

When Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers played Cleveland in 2017 on the group’s 40th anniversary tour, Vallon said that Petty asked to see Rissmiller. He and Wolf were instrumental in helping the Heartbreakers make the jump from local clubs to bigger venues by booking the group to headline the 3,000-seat Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1978, barely a year after the group had been an opening act at the Whisky a Go Go.

“Jim went in to see Tom, and Tom told him how grateful he was,” Vallon said. “Tom told him, ‘Thank you for believing in us; that was a really important show you did for us.’”