When the Beatles toured the United States, they did not bring their own PA (public address) system to amplify their vocals. Rather, the lads from Liverpool relied on the permanently installed gear that was available at the coliseums and baseball stadiums where they played. So “She loves you / yeah, yeah, yeah” was delivered with the same clarity as “Now batting in the third position, Pedro Borbón – Bón – bón…”
Clearly, PA technology needed a serious upgrade as rock and roll moved into venues that were substantially larger than nightclubs and theaters. In 1969, the Rolling Stones became one of the first (if not the first) bands to carry their own PA system on tour. The hardware kept getting bigger and louder, as outfits like The Who began to routinely slam concert goers’ eardrums with sounds up to 120dB (the sound level of a jet engine) and louder.
However, this quest for more volume during the early ‘70s often left the quality of the sound lacking. Yes, PA systems were loud, but the audio was frequently distorted, sometimes leaving fans with ringing ears after a show. This is where the Grateful Dead’s legendary “Wall of Sound” came into the picture.
Brian Anderson’s new book Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection (St. Martin’s Press, 369 pp., $32) chronicles the development of what many in the audio industry believe was the ultimate PA system. Introduced in 1974, the Wall of Sound was comprised of almost 600 speakers powered by 49 high-end McIntosh power amplifiers, producing distortion-free sound that was audible for a quarter mile with no degradation in quality. Though the Wall was huge, expensive, and unwieldy, it created the best concert sound ever heard at that point in time.
Anderson has been around the Grateful Dead’s music all of his life, with his first live exposure to the band occurring in the late ‘80s when his father was working on the Dead’s crew during tours of the Midwest. “When I was a toddler, my folks would bring my sister and I up to Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. Those are some of my earliest flashes of memory, watching the Dead perform. I remember being kind of freaked out during the [improvisatory] “space” sections [of the shows]. My little brain just couldn’t understand it,” Anderson says via Zoom.
Loud and Clear is a volume (so to speak) that will be 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. Rather than wallowing in data regarding watts, ohms and capacitors, Anderson delivers a comprehensive history of the Grateful Dead, using the band’s “quest for audio perfection” as a narrative through line.
From the beginning, the Dead was a loud band. In fact, it could be said that volume was a large part of the appeal, particularly since the Dead was, at least in its early days, usually playing for throngs of dancing, tripping hippies. During this time period, there were frequent equipment breakdowns and assorted snafus associated with the band’s PA.
Enter one Owsley Stanley. A quirky (to put it mildly) individual who made his most significant mark on the world by producing large quantities of high-quality, mega-powerful LSD marketed under names like Blue Cheer, White Lightning and Orange Sunshine. Stanley was also something of an electronics whiz, who was affected by a condition known as synesthesia, which causes a person to associate one sense with another. In Stanley’s case, he experienced sound as both an auditory and a visual sensation, “seeing” the sound coming out of the speakers and flying through the air (this without the assistance of LSD, it should be noted).
Like the members of the Dead, Stanley was interested with high-quality sound equipment, and the revenues from his LSD business enabled him to assume the position of the band’s patron. Thus the Dead’s PA system continued to increase in size and sophistication. The authorities eventually caught up with the acid merchant, but by the time Stanley went to prison for manufacturing LSD, the band was already well down the road to audio obsession.
“There was very much this mentality of, ‘Always funnel money back into the sound system.’ That was a priority from day one, really,” Anderson notes. This business philosophy meant that the Dead’s audio wizards were always trotting down the road to audio nirvana as the band grew into a formidable touring act. “The Wall of Sound didn’t drop out of the sky fully formed,” Anderson explains. “It was this progression that really started at the beginning of the band, quite frankly. There were some pivotal ‘a-ha!’ moments where it was like, ‘We can actually do this.’ Or, ‘Why don’t we think about doing it this way?’
“During this informal sort of hang / meeting one day, Owsley was like, ‘Hey guys, the solution to our sound problem is that we have to put the entire PA behind the band.’ I’ve spoken with people who were there in the room when he said that, and it took them a while to come around to what he was driving at, but in the moment, they were like, ‘This is completely crazy.’”
Stanley’s radical suggestion to rearrange the stage in opposition to all existing rules of sound reinforcement was not immediately implemented, as there were numerous technical hurdles to be overcome, not to mention skepticism from some of the principals involved. Nevertheless, when the Wall made its debut, those who heard it were astounded. Distortion was kept to a minimum by routing only one source (voice or instrument) through each speaker. It was certainly overkill, but the results were glorious, and there has been nothing like it since.
Anderson points out that the Wall was more than just a grand electronic experiment. Rather, it was something of a gift to the audience from the Dead. “They always had this ethic about the person in the very back row who, at the time, paid the same amount of money to come to the show as someone who was right up front hanging on the rail. They owed it to that person to get the same, exact clarity in the sound as someone who was right up front.”
“They always had this ethic about the person in the very back row who, at the time, paid the same amount of money to come to the show as someone who was right up front hanging on the rail. They owed it to that person to get the same, exact clarity in the sound as someone who was right up front.”
While engaged in research for Loud and Clear, Anderson discovered that an auction of Dead equipment from the early ‘70s was set to take place. Ultimately, he was the high bidder for a speaker enclosure that was actually a component in the Wall of Sound. As Anderson writes, “The artifact is a one-of-a-kind hunk of junk, with a patina of scuffs, dings, worn edges, adhesive residue and frayed wiring. It measures 31 x 22.5 x 24 inches and is constructed of 14-ply laminated Finnish birchwood painted matte black. That one of its two 12-inch cones is missing lends the cabinet a winking robot appearance. Don’t get me started on its dank interior odor.”
The speaker cab sits behind Anderson during our interview, peering over his shoulder. Despite suggestions that he refurbish the piece of gear, Anderson doesn’t see that happening any time soon. “Maybe one day,” Anderson says, “but right now I kind of like the idea of just having it.”
Most of us have run across the saying (often delivered by a building contractor) that you can’t get something done fast, well and cheap. You have to pick two of the three. Such was the case, eventually, with the Wall of Sound, which collapsed under its own weight, both literally and metaphorically. It didn’t come crashing down on unsuspecting musicians, but in some cases, the PA was was too heavy for stages to support it. And in terms of required manpower, money and time, the venture proved to be thoroughly unsustainable. Some might, therefore, consider the project a failure. But by God it was a noble failure, responsible for many innovations in the way PA systems were designed and constructed for years to come.
When reading Loud and Clear, it quickly becomes obvious that Anderson, a former writer and editor for VICE, The Atlantic and Vox, has done his homework (and then some) over a period of several years. The book is filled with citations regarding information gleaned from archives, new interviews and good old-fashioned dogged journalism.
Rather than merely recite facts and repeat hoary anecdotes, 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.
