Fantastic look into the wall of sound! Starting from their early days and going forward, this book went into great detail explaining so much of the history. Learning about the progress of the wall of sound and how it came to be, was a great ride. This is a fantastic book for anyone that has interests in the band and also the amount of skill and trial and error to build a historic piece of music and sound history!

To love the Grateful Dead is to love their sound. And to love their sound, it’s to love all the individuals behind what made their sound original.

This book is an audiophiles dream. Even if you’re not a Dead Head, and you’ve never listened to them ever, you will appreciate the details that Brian goes into as the quest for perfect sound becomes the mission of not just the band but Owsley “Bear” Stanley (outside of his LSD production), and their sound teams and crews. The amount of firsts the Dead have under their belt is incredible; to list a few:
- To place monitors in front of themselves so they could hear what their audience hears
- Move soundbooth from side stage to middle of the crowd
- Tapers section
- To blend one song into another on albums to truly let your music tell the story for you
- Placing the PA behind the band
- Microphone splitters for live recordings

It’s the history of modern day sound. The ever changing rig of speakers/PA that was customized in a way that allowed the audience to not just hear the sound, but feel the sound — and well, see the sound. (If you’ve ever been subjected to a bass bomb, then you know).

I love the attention Betty Cantor gets here. The Betty Tapes are archival gold.

It hurts to read how much the Dead loved to put on guerrilla and free gigs. In the modern money grab economy that we all know - and don’t love - looking at you TicketBastard and Pete Shapiro - we are put in a situation where if we want to see our favorite artists, we can’t just stick it to the man, we have to pay him and pay for his ivory tower.

What I wish this book had: photos. How can you talk about all the iterations of their setups and the speakers without any photos of their ever changing rig.

I really enjoyed learning about the Grateful Dead's story in this book, it was written well and enjoyed learning about this time-period. Brian Anderson wrote this perfectly and had that researched element that I was looking for.

The Grateful Dead…I can’t think of a more American band than them. Everyone knows the wild stories and the crazy crowds they had, but what about their sound system? Everyone has heard of the “Wall of Sound”, but what about the team that it took to develop it, and make it an actual thing that existed and actually worked (most of the time)? I was so excited to dive into this book, and it does not disappoint. It’s high drama across the country, while on the road with the Dead!

The book begins with the early days of the band, and the trials and tribulations they had while setting up sound for those early gigs. Things always seemed gnarly, so they decided to take matters into their own hands, and cobble together their own system, which kept growing and growing, just like the popularity of the band itself.

If you’re a Deadhead, you’ve heard of most of the people involved in this tale. Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Bill, Pigpen, Keith are all there, of course, but this book spends a lot of time with the nerds behind the scenes. The Bear’s, and Big Steve’s, and Wickersham’s of the Dead universe. These men and women busted their asses night in and night out to attempt to provide the loudest, yet clearest sound possible, all while on legendary amounts of mind-altering substances.

This was such a fun read. Being only 40, I never had the chance to see a proper Grateful Dead show, and that’s such a bummer, but this book transports the reader back to the late 60’s and early 70’s, and makes you feel like you’re right there with the band.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an advanced copy of this wonderful book!

This 350 page tome about the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound, it's heyday being 1973-74, is presented by the son of original Deadheads who brought their young son to Grateful Dead shows.

Brian has been obsessed with technological and mono/stereophonic ideas and creations all his life. He has researched his subject meticulously and obsessively. Maybe even too much- the latter part of the book, when the decade of ideas, cinstructions and deconstructions of various parts of what will become pieces of the Wall of Sound- comes to fruition, he details every show during the 1973-74 period. Many of his show reviews are redundant---- crew load in, hassles all around, disaster narrowly averted, 6-12 hours to set up the massive Wall, the actual concert, reviews from 'heads' proclaiming each concert the 'best I've every heard' 'melted my face off' etc. This went on for at least 100 pages. So frugal editing would've been helpful.

The most intresting part of the book was the beginning: the musicians were around 20, not thinking of much else besides working to produce the finest sound system for they music ever imagined. On board were a crack equipment crew , a brotherhood, all dedicated and committed, as Dan Healy often remarked, to the pursuit of excellence of sound.

There is A LOT of technical information amid the retelling of the idea of this massive sound system and the step-by-step gradations of learning curves experienced by the band and crew. For Grateful Dead audiophiles who also have knowledge of musical construction, building of instruments and sound gear, the detailed explanations for how and why a certain decision was made regarding the sound and its implementation will fascinate and perhaps be a reference for furthur explorations into the sonic unknown.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

If you're a music fan, audiophile, or just curious about rock history, *Loud and Clear* is a must-read. It dives into the Grateful Dead’s epic “Wall of Sound”—a massive, groundbreaking speaker system that was as wild and ambitious as the band itself. Packed with interviews and behind-the-scenes details, it’s a fascinating look at how the Dead pushed sound technology to its limits, creating something legendary, albeit unsustainable. Whether you're a Deadhead or just love a good music story, this book delivers!