Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sending me an advanced copy of Brian Anderson’s insightful and comprehensive new book Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection. I was checking out this book, but I wasn’t sure if this book was too much Grateful Dead for me. I didn’t really get into the Grateful Dead until about 10 years ago when a block of Dead Songs came on my local rock radio as I was scanning the dial. “Box of Rain” started playing, and I stopped to listen during a particularly difficult stretch of life. The song, and the one that followed, “Sugar Magnolia”, instantly lifted me up. I was usually dismissive of the Dead, never really appreciating the long, high-noted solos and extended jams. However, these bright, buoyant melodies struck a chord with me and lifted my spirits. I wouldn’t call myself a Deadhead, but I did start to explore their music and history a lot more, eventually reading Phil Lesh’s memoir Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead. It gave me more insight into the group, its music, and the constant exploration of sonic possibilities. Phil’s memoir made me not only realize how important the Dead are to American music, but how much they pushed the boundaries of what was possible in music, artistically, technically, and technologically, at the time. Brian Anderson’s comprehensive and detailed research and analysis fits nicely into this view of the Dead as technological innovators who were also looking to provide their audience with the kind of immersive sensory experience that was a part of the Acid Tests the Dead provided the soundtrack for in the burgeoning psychedelic scene that would eventually lead to the Summer of Love and Woodstock. Loud and Clear also goes beyond the musicians who comprised the Dead and examines the roles that engineers and the road crew played in helping to evolve the sound system that would eventually become known as “The Wall”, a mammoth system of speakers, scaffolding, amplifiers, pre-amps, and other electronics that required an 18-wheeler and large crew to transport, assemble and break down for each show. As someone who didn’t know a lot about the tangential Dead contributors, that is, those who operated more behind the scenes, I found this to be a fascinating look at how the band worked with others and leveraged their collective consciousness to forge ahead in the emerging sonic landscape and advance audio engineering to new heights.
Loud and Clear takes a chronological approach to detailing and analyzing the evolution of the Dead’s live sound, charting the band’s development from a bluegrass/folk outfit to an eventual electrified and amplified rock band. Framing this history is Anderson’s own personal connection with the Dead, and in particular the Wall of Sound, the Dead’s sound system. I liked this framing technique since it seems like everyone has their own personal connection to the Dead. For Anderson, part of that connection is from his parents, who were both involved in concert productions in the early 70s in the Midwest. Their mutual interest in the Dead enabled a young Anderson to catch some Dead shows before Garcia’s death in 1995. In addition, he opens and ends his book detailing a recent splurge on an auction item—a cabinet from the Wall that housed the speakers and monitors. It’s amazing to think that there are still pieces of this one-of-a-kind sound system available for purchase. Through Loud and Clear and its framing technique, Anderson sets out to explore how this cabinet, “with a patina of scuffs, dings, worn edges, adhesive residue, and frayed wiring”, was eventually developed, implemented to produce innovative live sound, and eventually discarded. Loud and Clear presents not just the history of an object, but rather the evolution of live sound and how the Dead and their engineers, roadies and audience helped to refine that live sound over time, creating one of the most unique live musical experiences in American popular music.
Although Anderson explores the development of the Dead’s music and sound system in a chronological order, he doesn’t excessively recast the history of the Grateful Dead, which has been documented in many other books as well as the memoirs of members Lesh and Kreutzmann. Rather, his exploration and analysis are primarily focused on the Dead’s sound, narrowing the lens on the sound system and the live concerts; however, there is some focus of the recordings the Dead produced early in their career since the band couldn’t quite capture the spontaneity and improvisational nature of their collective live work in the studio until they attempted to engineer their 3rd album, Aoxomoxoa. I noticed that Anderson used Lesh’s memoirs (and I’m assuming Kreutzmann’s as well) to document how the Dead developed their sound, both in studio and live in concert. However, Anderson doesn’t just rely on these memoirs, but rather supplements these with other accounts from interviews, concert reviews, and other Dead related resources available. I mention Aoxomoxoa since the Dead not only had more of a hand in recording and producing the album, but also took some inventive approaches to recording the album, including splicing live recordings with in-studio recordings, a process that has become rather standard in recording. I wondered if the Dead considered any of the work that Frank Zappa was doing with the Mothers, since Freak Out, which was produced almost 3 years prior, is one of those kinds of experimental recordings that contain spliced pieces and other forms of tape experimentation. Anderson documents some of the beef that the Dead and Zappa had, apparently performing in NYC in the late 60s, where they had to stagger their performances due to noise complaints. Regardless, Anderson’s research and reporting on the earlier stages of the Dead’s career helps to identify their experimental nature, as well as their desire to create not only a unique sound in rock music, but also to include the highest quality recording sound possible for their fans. While mixing that sound from studio recordings can be done post-production, attempting a clear, live mix where sounds from different instruments are separated into different channels was not yet possible or something that some sound engineers or bands were thinking about. Rather, concerts, especially rock concerts, seemed to focus more on volume, not the quality or distinction of the sounds.
The issue with focusing on volume is that it can often lead to feedback and distortion, and one of the Dead’s entourage, Augustus Owsley Stanley III, also known as Bear, became obsessively interested in engineering the perfect, most distinct live audio sound during Dead concerts in addition to manufacturing much of the LSD that fueled these concerts and the improvisational collective jamming that the band was known for. Anderson’s book isn’t a biography of Owsley, but he does provide some relevant information, and there is a good amount of focus on Owsley and his crew as they worked to develop The Wall. I really appreciated this focus since I didn’t know much about Owsley, who I found to be a really interesting and influential character in shaping the Dead’s sound. Anderson reveals Owsley’s characteristics and personality from different sources and interviews with those who knew him, developing a man who was seemingly obsessed with crystalizing the sound and who developed a unique relationship with the equipment he used to build and refine the wall of sound. Interestingly, Anderson, through interviews with Dead crew and family members who knew Owsley, posits the idea that Owsley, who was partially deaf in one ear, may have been on the spectrum. This feature of Owsley’s perception may have enhanced his sensitivities to auditory stimuli, making his ability to shape the live sound of the Dead more acute and distinct. It’s an interesting theory, and from Owsley’s behaviors and interest with the technical minutia of audio engineering, it seems like a possibility. I was just amazed at how Owsley with no real training in audio engineering (or chemistry for that matter) was able to envision and implement such a massive system.
In addition to Owsley, we meet other important members of the Grateful Dead crew and family who helped develop and enhance the system. The book focuses on Courtney Pollack, who ended up producing a lot of tie dyed materials that covered the initial sound system of the late 60s/early 70s, as well as members of Alembic, the company that eventually developed from the Dead’s community and provided many of the speakers and custom made instruments for the Dead. This was another part of the book that I found fascinating to learn more about. Lesh mentions some of these members, and the Good Ol’ Grateful Dead Podcast has episodes devoted to some of these community members, but Anderson’s book helps to further contextualize how they came abroad the Grateful Dead train and how they contributed to the sound. The chapters that lead up to the Wall of Sound’s development, from roughly ’68-’73, are incredibly detailed, focusing not just on the build-up and testing of these sound systems, but also the logistical requirements that a system of this size and magnitude required. Anderson hypothesizes that this might be part of the reason why the Dead did not fare well on famous concerts like Woodstock and The Monterrey Pop Festival. A section is also dedicated to the notorious Altamont Festival, which the Dead did not play. These chapters, as well as the last part of the book that details the implementation of the Wall in 1974, and the eventual hiatus of the band in 1975 that led to the Wall’s demise and disassembly are also a fascinating look at a fruitful period of live and recorded output from the Dead. If you trace the studio recordings from this period, the Dead scaled back their sound, focusing more on acoustic music and instruments, with classic albums like Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Although still a rock band, their sound moved away from the loud psychedelia, and progressed towards rootsy, Americana music, that often included traditional and bluesier music that had been at the heart of the band since their inception. I also wondered if this progression and the refining of their live sound might have also been a result of Pigpen’s lessening role in the band as he wasted away from alcoholism. Pigpen’s organ and blues shouting was eventually replaced by Keith Godchaux’s acoustic piano, and the more harmonious singing of Garcia and Weir. As a result, it seemed like the sound for live shows needed to focus on reproducing quality separation, and not increasing the volume. Regardless, Anderson’s book recaps so many shows from this period, and details what worked and the challenges the band faced as they implemented this revolutionary process of live sound management. I found it interesting to learn that the Dead were the first band to incorporate delay towers and line arrays, parts of sound production that we probably take for granted, that help large crowds enjoy music and sound distribution on a large scale. While I don’t attend many large concerts, it is amazing to think that the Dead and Owsley in particular were theorizing on audio principles and sound engineering to implement this new approach to concerts. It was also interesting to learn that the band also took sound measurements during sound checks to see how the sound traveled in different venues and adjust the sound levels. Anderson careful details the developments of this system, as well as all of the processes that were involved in measuring, calibrating, and refining the system for one of the most technologically advanced concert experiences of the 1960s/70s and beyond.
Anderson has written a fascinating and detailed book that explores an important, yet underreported facet of the Dead’s iconic history. This book is incredibly researched and reported. I found it informative and exciting to see how the band collaborated with their greater community, including fans and tapers, to further enhance their sound for live audiences. Unfortunately, relying on such a large crew to engineer, transport, and set up and break down such a complex system seemed to eventually bring about its downfall. Anderson also uses accounting ledgers from the Dead to detail their profits and costs for their shows. Such a massive system that towered over 30 feet and stretched over 100 feet across required intense labor to set up, and with constant variation in sound, often resulted in blown speakers, which constantly needed replacement. Anderson provides both original costs and adjusted costs for inflation to better understand the amount of money the Dead were spending on a monthly basis to perform live. The costs and logistics (as well as the massive amounts of cocaine and heroin that had infiltrated the band’s community) eventually led to the hiatus and lay-offs of the crew, as the band could no longer sustain taking them on tour. This also led the band to disassemble the Wall of Sound, which Anderson reports on its eventual demise. Some speakers were distributed to others, some put into storage, but he also notes that others have reported that much of the equipment was either trashed in a dump or set on fire, which is both sad and seemingly incongruous to a band that seemed to promote reuse and community support. Regardless, Anderson’s reporting and research helps to shape out not only what happened to the Dead’s massive experiment in audio engineering, but also how this experience shaped their later attempts at concerts, as well as how the Wall contributed to other bands’ concert sounds, noting possible influences on Pink Floyd and Brian Eno. I really enjoyed this book and found it fascinating to read and learn more about this aspect of the Dead’s sound. Anderson was scrupulous in his research and reporting, and this creates a dynamic and well-formed portrait of the Dead’s sound. There are a few elements of the book that I felt would have enhanced this book further. For one, the book has some technical elements to it, and while Anderson does a good job explaining some of the technical audio elements of the book, I felt like these descriptions along with descriptions of the Wall and its earlier incarnations might have benefited from some kind of schematic or visual representation. Similarly, some of the audio concepts about sound distribution, line arrays, or delay towers might have been supplemented with renderings or images to help other readers better understand what these elements of a sound system are and how they function. Additionally, I was surprised that there weren’t any images of the Wall, the Dead, or other artifacts from this era included. For one of the most well-documented bands in American popular music, it was a little surprising that there were no images included. However, that may have also been due to accessing use rights. Furthermore, there are a lot of individuals involved in the development of the Dead’s sound, so maybe providing a character list of these individuals would help keep them straight. As someone who has some familiarity with the Dead’s larger community, I had heard of some of these contributors, but again, a list might help other readers understand who these individuals were and what they contributed to the sound. Nevertheless, this is a great book, and a definite read for those interested in music and sound engineering. Even someone who is not a fan of the Dead would enjoy reading about how the band experimented with various sound systems to arrive at such a massive and clear sound system, only to eventually disassemble it after a few years of touring. The brief, wonderous and monstrous construction of this sound system reminded me of both a sand mandala and the kinds of Mayan pyramids in the jungle that were eventually abandoned after some use. While sand mandala’s have a shorter life span than the pyramids, the take time and careful consideration, with their destruction upon creation. The Wall seemed to last a brief time, recognizing that the system could no longer be sustained, yet eventually leading more venues to adopt some of the technology and approaches to sound engineering the system implemented. Similarly, the scope and size of the Mayan pyramids like Chichen Itza where engineering marvels of a grand scale, yet abandoned when the environment was no longer feasible to sustain it. It seemed like the Dead’s own monolithic construction was a marvel, but was unsustainable, and eventually abandoned. Yet artifacts and elements still remain, and fans and documentarians like Anderson are able to obtain a part of sound history to better study and recreate this important achievement in audio engineering. A really great read!

Fantastic! This book is so much more than a book about the Dead's "Wall of Sound." It traces the entire history of their quest for the best possible sound, starting around 1967 and going all the way through around 1976, stopping at all the crucial moments as the Dead refine their PA on their way to the "Wall of Sound." There is a tremendous amount of technical information here as well, which some may find boring, but if you are an audiophile who cares about such things, you will not be disappointed! The book also gives credit to the various Dead crew members who conceptualized the Wall, build it, and had the arduous task of setting it up night after night (which, frankly, sounds like a nightmare).

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this book that looks at a band that has had many books written about them, usually about the songs the sang, the lives they lived, but this one looks at something that was a key part of the band, their sonic legacy.

I came to music of jam bands and the Grateful Dead probably in college, something a lot of people would probably say. I had been familiar with the band, Touch of Grey their late in career hit was a staple on MTV, so odd to type that, and my father was a big fan of it. So much we got a copy from Colombia Record and Tape for him to listen to in the car. I was working in a record store that had bootleg recordings, and it was here that I found myself listening to the band in all its iterations. Pranksters, troubadours, acoustically, and finally the money making machine the band was near the end of their lead singe's life. I was never a Deadhead, I am not a joiner, nor much for joints, it was the music that always drew me in. The sound. Drums/ Space was something more than a chance to go to the bathroom, to me it was an exploration of both music, technology and the soul of creativity. In reading interviews with the band, on could learn about scuba diving, philosophy, and the latest MIDI technology, and sound design. This was a band that loved to play old songs, but as loud as they could, and as clean as sound could be made. Hence the Wall of Sound. A revolution in making the music they payed like they heard it, a revolution that nearly broke the band, their crew, but changed the concert experience forever. Loud and Clear:The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection by Brian Anderson is a look at a band, the music they could see, hear and play, the quest to share it with the world, and how the world was changed for the better, at least sonically.

The Grateful Dead might pretend to be hippies, who just show up and play, but at their core were a group of people who were always looking for the perfect sound, even if the band wasn't up to playing it at the time. From their early days playing pizza parlor, the band had a good pair of speakers, provided by the mother of Jerry Garcia, the leader of the band. Garcia was a taper, recording bluegrass players famous and unknown, and his own band, a policy that soon lead to audience members making their own tapes. This love of technology was carried over by one of the bands biggest proponents, audiophile and chemist Augustus Owsley Stanley III. Better known as Bear, Bear was a creator of LSD, which gave him access and money to technology that many bands couldn't get. The sounds of most concerts was muddy, using old public address systems, badly designed arenas, and filled with an audience who made more noise than the band. The idea of a perfect sound system began to take hold. One that was 60 feet tall, needing two crews to put up and take down, one that lead to hearing damage for some of the band, but led to a series of shows that are praised for their sound. However like most Walls, this divided the band in many different ways, and nearly led to their end.

I pretend not to be a Deadhead, but I think I have read most of the books that have come out about this band. Many touch on the sound, but most talk about the music, the inspiration and the drugs that fueled them. This is the first that I have read that looked at the technology of the sound. Sound that gets very little mention, but at the same time drove the band in many different ways. Anderson is a good writer, able to discuss minutiae about concert sound, and make it not only understandable but interesting. I also enjoyed the personal notes, discussing how his family, and in fact himself, owe the band for bringing them together. Anderson looks not only at the Wall of Sound, a monumental achievement, and a pricey one, but how concerts and venues were effected by this idea of clear sound. Anderson follows the development, points out problems, there were many, and looks also at how the technology has been adopted outside of the concert experience, Hearing aids and other devices, for example.

A very good book and a unique look at a band that one would think had been pretty mined out. Audio nerds will get a lot from this, fans of the music might learn a bit, and get a new appreciation for the way the band sonically shaped their music.

Fantastic look into the wall of sound! Starting from their early days and going forward, this book went into great detail explaining so much of the history. Learning about the progress of the wall of sound and how it came to be, was a great ride. This is a fantastic book for anyone that has interests in the band and also the amount of skill and trial and error to build a historic piece of music and sound history!

To love the Grateful Dead is to love their sound. And to love their sound, it’s to love all the individuals behind what made their sound original.

This book is an audiophiles dream. Even if you’re not a Dead Head, and you’ve never listened to them ever, you will appreciate the details that Brian goes into as the quest for perfect sound becomes the mission of not just the band but Owsley “Bear” Stanley (outside of his LSD production), and their sound teams and crews. The amount of firsts the Dead have under their belt is incredible; to list a few:
- To place monitors in front of themselves so they could hear what their audience hears
- Move soundbooth from side stage to middle of the crowd
- Tapers section
- To blend one song into another on albums to truly let your music tell the story for you
- Placing the PA behind the band
- Microphone splitters for live recordings

It’s the history of modern day sound. The ever changing rig of speakers/PA that was customized in a way that allowed the audience to not just hear the sound, but feel the sound — and well, see the sound. (If you’ve ever been subjected to a bass bomb, then you know).

I love the attention Betty Cantor gets here. The Betty Tapes are archival gold.

It hurts to read how much the Dead loved to put on guerrilla and free gigs. In the modern money grab economy that we all know - and don’t love - looking at you TicketBastard and Pete Shapiro - we are put in a situation where if we want to see our favorite artists, we can’t just stick it to the man, we have to pay him and pay for his ivory tower.

What I wish this book had: photos. How can you talk about all the iterations of their setups and the speakers without any photos of their ever changing rig.

I really enjoyed learning about the Grateful Dead's story in this book, it was written well and enjoyed learning about this time-period. Brian Anderson wrote this perfectly and had that researched element that I was looking for.

The Grateful Dead…I can’t think of a more American band than them. Everyone knows the wild stories and the crazy crowds they had, but what about their sound system? Everyone has heard of the “Wall of Sound”, but what about the team that it took to develop it, and make it an actual thing that existed and actually worked (most of the time)? I was so excited to dive into this book, and it does not disappoint. It’s high drama across the country, while on the road with the Dead!

The book begins with the early days of the band, and the trials and tribulations they had while setting up sound for those early gigs. Things always seemed gnarly, so they decided to take matters into their own hands, and cobble together their own system, which kept growing and growing, just like the popularity of the band itself.

If you’re a Deadhead, you’ve heard of most of the people involved in this tale. Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Bill, Pigpen, Keith are all there, of course, but this book spends a lot of time with the nerds behind the scenes. The Bear’s, and Big Steve’s, and Wickersham’s of the Dead universe. These men and women busted their asses night in and night out to attempt to provide the loudest, yet clearest sound possible, all while on legendary amounts of mind-altering substances.

This was such a fun read. Being only 40, I never had the chance to see a proper Grateful Dead show, and that’s such a bummer, but this book transports the reader back to the late 60’s and early 70’s, and makes you feel like you’re right there with the band.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an advanced copy of this wonderful book!

This 350 page tome about the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound, it's heyday being 1973-74, is presented by the son of original Deadheads who brought their young son to Grateful Dead shows.

Brian has been obsessed with technological and mono/stereophonic ideas and creations all his life. He has researched his subject meticulously and obsessively. Maybe even too much- the latter part of the book, when the decade of ideas, cinstructions and deconstructions of various parts of what will become pieces of the Wall of Sound- comes to fruition, he details every show during the 1973-74 period. Many of his show reviews are redundant---- crew load in, hassles all around, disaster narrowly averted, 6-12 hours to set up the massive Wall, the actual concert, reviews from 'heads' proclaiming each concert the 'best I've every heard' 'melted my face off' etc. This went on for at least 100 pages. So frugal editing would've been helpful.

The most intresting part of the book was the beginning: the musicians were around 20, not thinking of much else besides working to produce the finest sound system for they music ever imagined. On board were a crack equipment crew , a brotherhood, all dedicated and committed, as Dan Healy often remarked, to the pursuit of excellence of sound.

There is A LOT of technical information amid the retelling of the idea of this massive sound system and the step-by-step gradations of learning curves experienced by the band and crew. For Grateful Dead audiophiles who also have knowledge of musical construction, building of instruments and sound gear, the detailed explanations for how and why a certain decision was made regarding the sound and its implementation will fascinate and perhaps be a reference for furthur explorations into the sonic unknown.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

If you're a music fan, audiophile, or just curious about rock history, *Loud and Clear* is a must-read. It dives into the Grateful Dead’s epic “Wall of Sound”—a massive, groundbreaking speaker system that was as wild and ambitious as the band itself. Packed with interviews and behind-the-scenes details, it’s a fascinating look at how the Dead pushed sound technology to its limits, creating something legendary, albeit unsustainable. Whether you're a Deadhead or just love a good music story, this book delivers!