OWSLEY STANLEY - '60S COUNTERCULTURE ICON - DIES

Owsley Stanley, an icon of Bay Area counterculture in the 1960s and a
longtime associate of the Grateful Dead, died Sunday in a car accident
in his adopted home of Queensland, Australia, according to family
spokesperson Sam Cutler. He was 76.

Mr. Stanley had been driving to his home near the city of Cairns
during a storm and lost control of the car, Cutler said. He died
instantly. His wife, Sheila, suffered a broken collarbone.

Known as "Bear," Mr. Stanley came to prominence as the first to
manufacture LSD in quantity. Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" was believed
to have been inspired by a particularly potent batch of Mr. Stanley's
product. The Dead wrote the song "Alice D. Millionaire" in his honor
after a headline in a 1967 newspaper article referred to him as an
"LSD Millionaire."

Dead backer

Mr. Stanley was the band's first financial backer and briefly served
as manager before taking on the sound engineer role. He created the
first public address system specifically dedicated to music in 1966
and was responsible for the Dead's signature Wall of Sound.

He was also instrumental in founding high-end instrument manufacturer
Alembic Inc. and Berkeley's concert equipment maker Meyer Sound
Laboratories, which retrofitted sound equipment for AT&T Park and,
more recently, Zellerbach Hall.

Many of Mr. Stanley's live recordings of the Dead were released as
albums. Along with Bob Thomas, he also designed the band's famous
lighting bolt skull logo, known officially as Steal Your Face.

"Bear, as we knew him, was one of my all-time biggest influences," Bob
Weir, a founding member of the Dead, said in a statement. "Always,
when I think of him, I think of the endless stuff he taught me or
somehow made me realize; all stuff that I've been able to use to the
benefit of countless people."

Born Augustus Owsley Stanley III (he legally shortened his name in
1967) in Kentucky on Jan. 19, 1935, his namesake grandfather was the
governor of that state from 1915 to 1919 and represented Kentucky in
both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

Before enrolling at UC Berkeley in 1963, Mr. Stanley served in the
U.S. Air Force and studied ballet in Los Angeles. He dropped out of
school after one semester once he discovered the recipe for making LSD
in the Journal of Organic Chemistry at a UC Berkeley library.

1.25 million LSD doses

While working a technical job at KGO TV, Mr. Stanley started
manufacturing large quantities of LSD. Bear Research Group reputedly
made more than 1.25 million doses between 1965 and 1967, essentially
seeding the entire modern psychedelic movement.

His lab was raided in 1966 by Berkeley police, who thought they found
methedrine. When the substance turned out to be something else, Mr.
Stanley successfully sued the cops for the return of his lab equipment.

He was arrested in 1967 at his secret lab in Orinda but didn't serve
time until a 1970 pot bust in Oakland prompted a judge to revoke his
bail. Mr. Stanley served two years at Terminal Island near the Los
Angeles Harbor.

"I wound up doing time for something I should have been rewarded for,"
he said in a rare 2007 interview with The Chronicle's Joel Selvin.
"What I did was a community service, the way I look at it. I was
punished for political reasons. Absolutely meaningless. Was I a
criminal? No. I was a good member of society - only my society and the
one making the laws are different."

Mr. Stanley became a naturalized Australian citizen in 1996, living
off the grid with wife Sheila in the bush of Queensland. His decision
to move to the tropical northern side of the country in the early '80s
was based, in part, on his belief that global warming would lead to a
new ice age and the region would be the most likely to survive.

In recent years, Mr. Stanley made small gold and enamel sculptures and
wearable art pieces, which he sold through his own website. He also
used the site as an outlet to post personal essays and reminisces.

Toxic veggies

Mr. Stanley lived on an all-meat and dairy diet. He believed
vegetables were toxic and blamed a heart attack several years ago on
the broccoli his mother made him eat as a child. He lost one of his
vocal cords to cancer in 2006.

"Bear, for me, was a true kindred spirit," Phil Lesh, the Dead's bass
player, said in a statement. "When we first met, it was as if I had
met a long-lost brother from another lifetime. I am heartbroken and
devastated at his passing."

Mr. Stanley is survived by his wife, Sheila; sons Pete and Starfinder;
daughters Nina and Redbird; eight grandchildren; and two
great-grandchildren.

Funeral services are pending.