Loud and Clear
The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection

Quotes

"captivating... Anderson’s detailed account captures both the technical brilliance and the cultural significance of this groundbreaking sound system." —Booklist

"The epic history of a rock band's signature sound system... A fresh account of the Grateful Dead's relentless pursuit of sonic perfection" —Kirkus Reviews

"Loud and Clear reveals that the Grateful Dead’s iconic sound system was far more than a fleeting experiment; it was a landmark in the band’s tireless quest to achieve the utmost clarity in live sound. Through extensive research, Anderson presents the Wall as both a groundbreaking technological feat and a living character shaped by the labor and singular vision of the many collaborators who brought it into being. The book traces the Wall’s development across the full arc of the Dead’s history, beginning with their earliest sonic experiments and continuing into the present through its influence on live sound engineering and lasting imprint on Deadhead culture. In doing so, Anderson shows how dogged persistence, innovation, and the pursuit of excellence converged to produce one of the most ambitious and mythologized sound systems in live music history." —Annabelle Walsh, Deadhead Style Archive

"The Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound began with a hallucination. Fortunately for the world, the hallucinator was Owsley Stanley, who had the wherewithal to bring the concept to fruition with the Grateful Dead, who from their inception were committed to delivering clear sound to their audiences and to themselves onstage. Brian Anderson's Loud and Clear is a thorough and warmly-told account of the Grateful Dead's technical history from the Acid Tests (1965) through the Wall of Sound era, which ended at Winterland in October of 1974 but whose technological advances have benefitted musicians and their audiences in every realm to this day." —David Gans, musician, radio host, and author of Conversations With the Dead

"Exhaustively researched and beautifully written, Loud and Clear details the evolution of the Grateful Dead’s sound system from their days as a bar band to the creation of the world’s greatest sound system, “the Wall.” It’s an intimate dive into the gear, the lives of the engineers who developed it and the crew members who cared for it, and their mutual relationship to the band. It’s first rate." —Dennis McNally, author of A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead

"Much more than just an examination of the most famous sound system in music history—the Wall of Sound— Brian Anderson's Loud and Clear is a lively, meticulously researched and compelling behind-the-scenes portrait of the Grateful Dead and the unsung heroes (and heroines) who toiled long and hard in service of that "band out on the highway" during the group's formative and fascinating first decade. It's an evolution story populated by an intriguing assortment of cool, driven, brilliant, strange, volatile, visionary, and eccentric characters; and filled with adventures, misadventures, triumphs and disasters all along the way. This book will definitely show you a side of the Grateful Dead scene you've never seen before." —Blair Jackson, author of Garcia: An American Life and Grateful Dead Gear

"A gloriously fun unpacking of the most ambitious and pivotal period in Grateful Dead history, making it one of the most ambitious periods for any artist ever, where they succeeded at rewriting the rules of record distribution, live sound, and even music itself, with no better symbol than the hyperreal Wall of Sound that loomed behind them as they performed, channeling luminous music and generating myths at every tour stop." —Jesse Jarnow, co-host of official Grateful Deadcast & author of Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America

"An industrious reporter and passionate writer with deep ties to the communities he writes about, Brian embodies the sheer joy of being present when 'something new is waiting to be born' creatively, as the Grateful Dead put it. He's a trustworthy guide to experiences that are hard to put into words." —New York Times bestselling author Steve Silberman, co-creator of Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads