Bear's Sonic Journals: The Foxhunt, The Chieftains Live in San Francisco 1973 & 1976 was recorded live by legendary soundman Owsley “Bear” Stanley, at Boarding House on 1st October 1973, where The Chieftains appeared at the personal invitation of The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia.
This never-released-before project from The Owsley Stanley Foundation and Claddagh Records is the last ever by the legendary member of The Chieftains, Paddy Moloney.
Owsley Stanley, known as Bear to his friends, was a diversely talented, iconic figure of the 1960s. While perhaps most widely known as the ‘Acid King’ for his early role manufacturing the highest quality LSD to help fuel the psychedelic revolution of the 1960s, he was a self-educated innovator, scientist, artist, and patron of the arts with wide-ranging interests. As such, he had a profound and well-documented influence on other artists, musicians, and sound engineers, among others. Bear started recording when he was the soundman for the Grateful Dead so he could develop his technique, evaluate his equipment, and fine-tune his mic arrangements. He called these recordings his ‘Sonic Journals’ and they helped to improve his approach to live concert sound.
Bear's Sonic Journals: The Foxhunt, The Chieftains Live in San Francisco 1973 & 1976 is one of these ‘Sonic Journals’, which are lovingly maintained by The Owsley Stanley Foundation – a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation Owsley’s archive of more than 1,300 live concert soundboard recordings from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including recordings by Miles Davis, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac, Janis Joplin, and more than 80 other artists across nearly every musical idiom.
The 2CD also features bonus material of the last interview Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains ever gave before his passing in 2021 and a history of Irish roots in Bluegrass music by The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia.
