Loud and Clear
The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The first book to tell the full story of the Grateful Dead’s “Wall of Sound,” an unprecedented and since unparalleled speaker system.
Loud and Clear is the first book to tell the full story of the Grateful Dead’s “Wall of Sound,” an unprecedented and since unparalleled speaker system that was as tall as a school bus is long and more than a hundred feet wide. The band’s quest for roaring yet crystal clear sound began after their formation in 1965, colliding with the ‘60s progressive social climate.
Over the next few years, the Dead’s growing crew of sound-obsessed techies and eccentric roadies took their speaker system to new technological heights. But as the Dead’s relentless, drug-fueled touring schedule met this increasingly burdensome yet sonically perfect machine, in 1974, the Wall brought the band to its knees. The two years of “Wall shows” are legend among Deadheads, and this character-driven tale about human ambition, achievement, and the limits of both on a larger-than-life scale has the potential to reach a wide range of music fans and readers of cultural history.
Author Brian Anderson interviewed hundreds of people associated with the band and the construction of the Wall itself, including band members, roadies, tech wizards, fans and many more. This fascinating inside story of one of the most legendary rock bands of all time will appeal to Deadheads, music fans, audiophiles and many more.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this uneven debut, music journalist Anderson traces the evolution of the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound, the mammoth PA system the band toured with in the 1970s. Spearheaded by audio engineer and LSD manufacturer Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the band's search for the "perfect sound" culminated in 1974 with a hulking system that stood 48 feet wide, weighed upwards of 75 tons, and emitted a sound that was "like confronting the sublime." The system pioneered such innovations as placing speakers behind the band, which allowed them to hear what the audience heard, rather than rely on monitors controlled by sound mixers, and putting control knobs on amps that let band members adjust their individual mixes, which allowed them to connect with the audience in unprecedented ways and laid the foundation for noise-canceling headphones and hearing aids. Other Wall of Sound innovations set precedents for reconfiguring studios and performance spaces for rock music's acoustic particularities. Though Anderson is a lively storyteller, his insightful points about the Wall of Sound's legacy sometimes get lost in a sea of granular details about audio technology and meetings between engineers, and his attempts to use the system as a lens on broader cultural shifts can feel like a stretch. It's a mixed bag.
