Bear: The Life and Times of Augustus Owsley Stanley III

by Robert Greenfield

Overview

The creator of the dancing bear logo and designer of the Wall of Sound for the Grateful Dead, Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known by his nickname, Bear, was one of the most iconic figures in the cultural revolution that changed both America and the world during the 1960s.

Owsley's high octane rocket fuel enabled Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to put on the Acid Tests. It also powered much of what happened on stage at Monterey Pop. Owsley turned on Pete Townshend of The Who and Jimi Hendrix. The shipment of LSD that Owsley sent John Lennon resulted in The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album and film.

Convinced that the Grateful Dead were destined to become the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band, Owsley provided the money that kept them going during their early days. As their longtime soundman, he then faithfully recorded many of the Dead's greatest live performances and designed the massive space age system that came to be known as the Wall of Sound.

Award-winning author and biographer Robert Greenfield’s definitive biography of this Grateful Dead legend masterfully takes us through Owsley's incredible life and times to bring us a full picture of this fascinating man for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250139184
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/31/2017
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	438,674
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

A former Associate Editor of the London bureau of Rolling Stone magazine, ROBERT GREENFIELD is the critically acclaimed author of several classic rock books, among them S.T.P.: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones. With Bill Graham, he is the co-author of Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out, which won the ASCAP - Deems Taylor Award. His short fiction has appeared in GQ, Esquire, and Playboy magazines. He lives in California.

Editorial Reviews

[Augustus Owsley Stanley III] was Walter White without all the moral conflict or drama, a trailblazing alchemist who mass-produced LSD and made millions before anyone thought to make it illegal. Bear remains interesting long after his era has passed… Essential for Deadheads but also an engaging cultural portrait for anyone interested in the era.”—Kirkus Reviews

"The most mysterious man of the underground is finally revealed. Who changed life in the 20th century more than Owsley, who made the first million or so doses of LSD? He spent his life covering his tracks, avoiding photographs and spreading misinformation about himself, but now, finally, Robert Greenfield's Bear: The Life and Times of Augustus Stanley Owsley gives us the man and his great life in all its considerable glory."—Joel Selvin, author of Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels and Rock's Darkest Day

“Like Bill Graham and Jerry Garcia before him, Owsley Stanley comes alive on the page thanks to Robert Greenfield’s incisive ability to dig deep and illuminate a crucial and elusive figure in American music and popular culture. Bear is an invaluable part of any self-respecting Deadheads’ library.”—Alan Paul, author of One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band

"Robert Greenfield ably provides a sorely-needed sorting of the facts, myths, and deeply original beliefs originating from Owsley Stanley, father of American LSD and idiosyncratic patron to the Grateful Dead. A complex figure of unparalleled importance in the counterculture—and, thus, 20th century history at large—the rarely interviewed or photographed chemist comes alive on his own Owsleyian terms while Greenfield clears up the untruths and sets a few new legends in motion."—Jesse Jarnow, author of Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America

"Owsley “Bear” Stanley was an authentic shaman-alchemist whose production of millions of doses of LSD transformed a tiny San Francisco neighborhood into ground zero for a planet-wide challenge to conventional notions of reality. That he was also ornery, obsessive, and at times just plain odd was merely part of the package. Bear illuminates a fascinating story with insight and panache, and it’s essential — no Owsley, no sixties as we know them; it’s that simple".—Dennis McNally, author of A Long Strange Trip and On Highway 61

"Perfectly in line with his insightful biographies of Jerry Garcia and Timothy Leary, Robert Greenfield’s Bear paints a rich portrait of yet another counterculture icon, the legendary and ever-mysterious Owsley Stanley. Bolstered by Greenfield’s revealing interviews with his late subject, Bear proves Owsley was more than just the “King of LSD.” From sound systems to climate change, he was the forward-thinking Renaissance Man of the psychedelic era, and here, at last, is his full, fascinating story."—David Browne, author of So Many Roads: The Life and Times of the Grateful Dead

"[T]he first full biography of the man whose obsessive drive for perfection gave the [Grateful] Dead their dedication to quality in their performances and recordings....Greenfield's anecdotal Bear feeds a Deadhead's jones—those who were there during that Summer of Love or their children and grandchildren. Robert Greenfield's gossipy Bear captures the genius and craziness of the man who turned on a generation and made the Grateful Dead into a rock powerhouse."—Shelf Awareness

“. . . a poignant glimpse of a man with extraordinary power who ultimately used that power against himself.”—Boston Globe on Dark Star

“The best book ever written about the Stones, if not music in general.”—Independent on S.t.p.: A Journey Through America With The Rolling Stones

"The LSD made by the man we called Bear was some of the best. His influence is immeasurable. Robert Greenfield does a damn good job of telling us why that is so."—Counter Punch

From the Publisher

09/15/2016
Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known as "Bear," was the Grateful Dead's first live sound engineer, the group's benefactor in their early years, and arguably the most famous manufacturer and distributor of LSD the world has ever known. Former Rolling Stone editor Greenfield's pretty solid, if skimpily researched, book provides an introduction to this elusive and fascinating member of the Dead pantheon. He relies heavily on a Rolling Stone magazine article by Charles Perry as well as original interviews and emails with Bear himself. The bulk of the volume will be familiar to most Deadheads, but the final section is quite intriguing, illuminating Bear's years after he left the employ of the Dead. Though he could be infuriating in his self-centered singlemindedness, his personality grows on readers and ends up leaving a lovable impression. VERDICT This is the best overview of Bear's life to date, but one wishes that Greenfield would have put into this book the same amount of time that he put into his thoroughly researched Timothy Leary: A Biography.—Derek Sanderson, Mount Saint Mary Coll. Lib., Newburgh, NY

Library Journal

Sept. 8, 2016
The high life and low times of the original Acid King.Augustus Owsley Stanley III (1935-2011), aka “Bear,” may not be a widely known counterculture figure, but the 1960s wouldn’t have been the same without him. He was Walter White without all the moral conflict or drama, a trailblazing alchemist who mass-produced LSD and made millions before anyone thought to make it illegal. As presented by prolific rock scribe Greenfield (Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye: The Rolling Stones on the Road to Exile, 2014, etc.) in this amiable life story, Stanley was the kind of peripatetic loser who flunked out at everything but drugs. Once he discovered the hallucinogen, he drew on his jack-of-all-trades skills and the expertise of his chemist girlfriend to produce it in large quantities. The result was a product known for both its intensity and purity; as Steely Dan would later sing of Stanley, “on the hill, the stuff was laced with kerosene / But yours was kitchen clean.” Stanley thought of himself as a gourmet chef, a “master of fine mental cuisine.” He would also become the key backstage figure for the Grateful Dead, whom he helped bankroll in their early days, as well as becoming their legendary recording engineer. Greenfield recounts Stanley’s life with an ample amount of interviews from his subject as well as family members and the surviving members of the Dead; all remember a generally likable, if frustrating and paranoid, control freak. As a subject, Bear remains interesting long after his era has passed, although the book loses some energy toward the end, as Greenfield describes the quotidian details of the day leading up to Bear’s fatal 2011 car wreck. Essential for Deadheads but also an engaging cultural portrait for anyone interested in the era.

Kirkus Review