I first met the man many called the reincarnation of Jim Morrison and front man for Hello Sailor on the main beach of the Mount, with his brothers in arms Dave "Hook" McCartney, Harry "lying in the sun" Lyon, Wally "fulla" Woolright and Ricki Ball, when local music legend Steve Grant and I put on a concert called The Sunset Festival at the Mount Sound Shell.
This was the late 70s, back in the day when love, peace and happiness - alongside copious quantities of "enjoyment enhancers" were ever-present and Hello Sailor oozed the type of charisma many of us identified with and understood - or so we thought at the time.
The after-party of the Sunset Sailor concert at Barry Beazley's mansion was straight out of Hunter S Thompson's Fear & Loathing best-seller and, although John Belushi didn't show up poolside, every other wild-side walker did.
This first up expression session kindled a flame of friendship that no amount of fear and loathing or substance abuse could dampen, and it has endured for 40 years to this day.
But when some of us pulled the parachute of sobriety before crash landing, the son of a Liverpool scouse with a story to be told and a shanty to be sung, soldiered on.
There was another side to Graham's appetite for hedonistic indulgences that mainstream fans never knew and I was privileged to see and that was his huge appetite for knowledge.
Late at night when the world had fallen asleep as the tour van trundled to the next gig, Graham would recite from his vault of verses, gleaned from the shelves of his mother's book shop on Dominion Rd, a shop he inherited from Christine who still is sharp at aged 98.
Charles Bukowski the German-born American writer and poet (Barfly) was his favourite, as was De Niro in Raging Bull his all time favourite movie.
But when it came to sport, union was for sheilahs and league was the love of his life.
When the Kiwis were playing a test the world stopped no matter what time of the day or night and out would appear Graham marshalling us to the telly to watch.
If you weren't wearing black with a white v down the front, then you were politely told to bugger off.
Graham was born to be wild and he walked on that side of life for most of his days. For tour manager Mike Corless it was a constant challenge to keep him coherent before performing.
My memorable Sailor memories of being flown back twice to New Zealand (all expenses paid) while living overseas, to be Graham's "minder" on a Do da Coruba national tour, are as new as a blue tattoo. Basically this involved keeping him straight before he went on stage and keeping everyone else from giving him "gifts" - including their phone numbers.
Most I intercepted but on more than one occasion I would end up being part of the problem, a bit like putting a kid in charge of a candy store and then Mike would have to send someone to look for both of us.
Sure, Hello Sailor never climbed to world-wide fame but they sure did take their fans on one hell of a ride.
For those of us who took the ticket to ride and walked with him, we were blessed to be a bro to beef. He gave and he gave and he rarely asked - unless it was "on tick" until tomorrow. And now tomorrow has arrived.
Fly free, Sailor Boy. Fly to where flamingos wait for brothers in arms.
Yesterday we were 10 years old and now we are Billy Bold -
"Free speech. Half each."
-broblack@xtra.co.nz
Tommy Wilson is a best-selling local writer.
