Loud and clear The Grateful Dead's wall of sound and the quest for audio perfection

Review by Booklist Review

Journalist Anderson tells the captivating story of the Grateful Dead's legendary stack of speakers, which reached its peak in 1974 as a towering, three-story structure spanning 100 feet and weighing 75 tons. Built to deliver crystal clear sound at staggering volumes, the Wall reflected the Dead's commitment to eliminating all sonic separation between band and audience. Its size and complexity required four trucks and a crew of 40 to assemble and operate it, making the Wall an awe-inspiring but ultimately unsustainable project. Anderson draws on extensive interviews with sound engineers, musicians, and Deadheads to trace the Wall's rise and fall. Central to the story is Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the engineering genius and LSD-fueled visionary whose relentless drive helped bring the Wall to life. Despite its short lifespan, the Wall left a legacy in live music. Innovations like Janet Furman's preamp equalizer, now a standard in professional recording equipment, is one of an impressive list of technological advances that arose from the Dead's experiment. Anderson's detailed account captures both the technical brilliance and the cultural significance of this groundbreaking sound system.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

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. (June)

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Review by Library Journal Review

The debut title by award-winning journalist Anderson is a history of the Grateful Dead's live sound systems, from the various pre-Dead groups up through the legendary Wall of Sound, an unprecedented speaker system that the band used during their 1974 shows. A key insight of the book is that the Dead were always sonic innovators when it came to their live performances, and in this context, the Wall of Sound was simply the perfection of their pursuit of clear, clean, undistorted sound. Through original interviews with those who worked on the Wall of Sound and the Dead's live performances, Anderson reveals that many of the innovations of the Wall have since become standard at contemporary live shows of all kinds. Although some of these innovations have now been surpassed, the Dead often got there first. VERDICT Among the better-written Grateful Dead books in recent memory, this work is recommended for new and old Deadheads and those with a general interest in rock music history and sonic technology.--Derek Sanderson

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The epic history of a rock band's signature sound system. Anderson's first book traces the development of the Grateful Dead's so-called Wall of Sound between 1964 and 1975. At its peak, the system consisted of almost 600 speakers, stood over three stories tall, weighed 75 tons, and required four semi-trucks to haul it from gig to gig. Building on a 2015 magazine article, Anderson casts the Wall of Sound as a central character in the Dead's long, strange trip. By featuring the band's formidable equipment, Anderson also showcases its touring operation, live shows, road managers, crew members, and sound engineers. Over time, the Wall of Sound drained the band's resources and made touring an ordeal. Shortly after the Dead announced a hiatus in 1974, it laid off crew members and scuttled its unwieldy rig. Drawing on new interviews, archival material, memoirs, and previous histories, Anderson marches through years of live performances and the Wall of Sound's highs and lows. Less motivated readers may fall by the wayside, but the book shows that the Wall of Sound deserves a place of honor in the band's history. It notes how frequently critics applauded the band's sound system, and it affirms bassist Phil Lesh's suggestion that the Dead's live performances from this period are cherished in part because of its commitment to excellent sound. The book also connects the band's efforts to later advances, including the elaborate sound system at the Sphere, the massive $2.3 billion venue in Las Vegas that hosts the current incarnation of the Dead. "The Wall might have fallen silent a half-century ago," Anderson writes. "But the system's reverberations only grow louder." A fresh account of the Grateful Dead's relentless pursuit of sonic perfection. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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