The new arrangement was a way the Grateful Dead could continue to essentially book themselves with a promoter they trusted, who in turn worked with other local promoters and venues.

They knew they could go play live dates.

They never trusted agents.

For a very short time, when I first started with them, they had an agent, a guy named Ron Rainey at, um, APA.

But that lasted maybe one tour.

Just didn't trust agents.

It wasn't to my benefit to tell them different because really when you, when you, when you work with a band of that stature, and while early in the '70s, maybe even into the '80s, it really was a cult.

John Scher had been working so closely with the Garcia Band that it was a natural fit, and Scher would serve in the same role for the rest of the Grateful Dead's career outside the Bay Area, where Bill Graham continued to handle local shows.

We'll have more with promoter John Scher next episode, but he provides this character note about Hal Cant.

Their attorney at the time was a guy named Hal Cant.

Big, big character.

Very, very smart.

Didn't have really a mainstream music practice, although he represented the Dead and represented the New Riders and maybe a few other acts.

But he was also a professional poker player.

And I think he won the World Series of Poker a couple of times.

We spoke with him a few years back.

Band called, said, "We'd like you to come out.

We'd like to have a meeting with you." Now, they weren't playing at that point.

I said, "Okay, sure." You know, got on a plane.

Uh, meeting was at, uh, at Bobby Weir's house.

Fabulous house.

We sat down, and basically they said, "We'd like to play live again, but the last tour where we played some bigger places, we lost the intimacy with the, with the audience." I'm not sure whether they admitted it, but it was clear as could be that that Wall of Sound was a disaster, an unmitigated disaster.

John Scher might be in the minority in thinking that the wall didn't work in practice.