Owsley Stanley (b. Augustus Owsley Stanley III, January 19, 1935, also known as Owsley or Bear) was an underground LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD. His total production is estimated at around half a kilogram of LSD, or roughly 5 million 100-microgram "trips" of normal potency, although accounts vary widely. The widespread and low-cost (often given away free) availability of high-quality Owsley LSD in the San Francisco area in the mid-1960s may well have been indispensable for the emergence of the hippie movement during the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury area, which one historian of that movement, Charles Perry, has described as "one big LSD party" and which has had continuing influence to this day in American society in terms of increasing tolerance for alternative perspectives and lifestyles. Owsley was also an accomplished sound engineer, and the longtime soundman for seminal psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead; the band's well-known "dancing bear" icon derives from his nickname. He designed the first high-fidelity sound systems for rock music, culminating in the massive "Wall of Sound" electrical amplification system used by the Grateful Dead in their live shows, at the time a highly innovative feat of engineering^<1>, and was involved with the founding of high-end musical instrument maker Alembic Inc and the pre-eminent concert sound equipment manufacturer Meyer Sound. The combination of his notoriety in the psychedelic scene and his reclusive tendencies (in part cultivated to confuse the authorities —-he avoided being photographed and refused to be interviewed for many years) led to the perpetuation of many inaccurate tales invoking him, and it should be noted that most published materials about him contain some inaccuracies.