Bear The life and times of Augustus Owsley Stanley III

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 © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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 wouldnt 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 Stanleys 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 Bears fatal 2011 car wreck. Essential for Deadheads but also an engaging cultural portrait for anyone interested in the era. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.