A producer I work with—who’s a big Grateful Dead fan—asked me if I had ever heard about Betty Boards, some of the most iconic recordings to Deadheads.
I’d heard of the Grateful Dead, of course. But I didn’t know about Betty Cantor-Jackson, and I certainly didn’t know that a woman was behind some of their most famous live recordings.
Not Just a Tape Recorder
At first, I thought the Betty Boards were just another part of the Dead’s bootleg and tape-trading culture. But that’s not what they are at all.
Betty wasn’t a bootlegger—she was a professional recording engineer. Betty worked directly with the band, capturing their live shows at a level that went way beyond pressing record on a tape machine.
She was actively mixing in real time, making adjustments as the band played. Betty did this for a band that never played the same set twice, that could stretch a song for 20 minutes, and that could go from whisper-quiet to full-blown chaos in seconds.
That’s not just an archival recording. That takes a recording engineer with sharp ears, mixing skills, and technical proficiency.
The Dead’s Obsession with Sound
One thing I didn’t know about the Dead? They cared about audio quality—a lot.
This was a band that didn’t just show up and play through whatever PA system the venue had. They built their own sound systems, working with engineers and designers to develop equipment that didn’t exist yet. Their mixing consoles, speaker arrays, and even some of their instruments were custom-modified to match their needs.
A major force behind this was Owsley “Bear” Stanley, the band’s original sound engineer. Along with Dan Healy, who would become their longtime Front-of-House mixer, and Ron Wickersham of Alembic, they developed some of the most advanced live audio setups of their era.
The best example? The Wall of Sound (1974)—a custom PA system unlike anything that had been built before. Instead of a traditional central PA, the Wall of Sound used separate speaker stacks for vocals, guitars, bass, and drums. This created a cleaner, more natural representation of the band’s live sound. The system was ambitious and ultimately retired due to its size and complexity, but it pushed live sound reinforcement into new territory.
In this work environment, Betty couldn’t just hit record and hope for the best. She had to understand the complexity of the Dead’s live setup, navigate custom-built consoles, and troubleshoot on the fly. Her ability to capture these performances so faithfully shows just how skilled she was as a recording engineer.
A Hidden Figure of Live Music Recording
A lot of articles about Betty focus on how her recordings were rediscovered years later after being lost in storage. That’s an interesting story, but to me, it’s not the most important part.
What stands out is that she was doing serious, professional engineering work at a time when few women were in that role. She wasn’t just documenting the moment—she was shaping how people would experience it for decades to come.
It’s been said that Betty’s recordings from the Wall of Sound era most closely match what it was like to be in the audience. That’s saying a lot—especially considering the challenges of recording an extremely loud stage.
Like many great engineers, Betty is not as widely known as she should be. But the work she did left such an impression that fans gave it a name—the Betty Boards. This is a testament to just how much her recordings shaped the way people experience the Dead’s music today.