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

by Brian Anderson

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250319678
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/17/2025
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

BRIAN ANDERSON has been a Webby Award-winning senior features editor, writer, and producer at VICE. More recently, he did a stint as science editor at The Atlantic, where he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for early pandemic coverage, and was later an editor at Vox. He lives in Chicago with his partner (and a piece of the Wall of Sound). Loud and Clear is his first book.

Editorial Reviews

"There’s a lot to get lost in, and from their early days as a touring band, the Dead won legions of stoned and tripping devotees. Anderson’s book, though, is dizzying in a different way: It’s a detailed, almost show-by-show breakdown of the band’s live performances across its first decade (roughly 1965 to 1974), augmented by insider stories. Readers meet not only Stanley but also other engineers, roadies, and crew members who worked long hours under difficult conditions to help the Dead put on incomparable shows." —The Atlantic

"In Loud and Clear, Anderson captures both the technical brilliance and the absurdity of the project, with tales of flipped trucks, accidental electrocutions, broken limbs and blown deadlines." —Variety

"Loud and Clear is as much a story about the Dead’s audio equipment as it is about the band’s musical philosophy and the way money, fame, and excess challenged it...Loud and Clear’s at-times harrowing narrative includes broken arms, nearly-severed toes, falling equipment, electrocutions and flipped trucks." —Billboard

“Anderson not only draws on his years of science reporting but also his perspective as a longtime Deadhead, whose parents occasionally worked at the band’s shows. What’s more, he owns a rare artifact, a piece of the Wall itself…” —Relix

“Brian Anderson’s Loud and Clear captures the strenuous work, psychedelic vision and lasting influence of the band’s most audacious sound-system experiment.” —Hollywood Reporter

"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." —Library Journal

"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

“Of interest to lovers of classic rock, hardcore Dead fans and even those who do not have much interest in the technical side of these things… Anderson tells not only the story of the Dead and an incredible PA system, he uses the Wall as a physical manifestation of the Dead’s obsessive, quixotic and nerdy nature, in the process chronicling the evolution of the rock and roll concert business. Would that more books about music were written in this exemplary fashion.” —Houston Press

"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

From the Publisher

2025-03-22
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.

Kirkus Reviews