The History and Meaning of the Grateful Dead Bears

Whether or not you consider yourself a Deadhead, you’ve certainly seen the iconic Grateful Dead “dancing bears” a time or two.

Initially designed by artist Bob Thomas to appear on the back cover of the band’s 1973 release, The History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear’s Choice), the bears have become deeply ingrained in the culture surrounding the Grateful Dead, and have taken on layers of symbolic meaning over the years.

Before you understand the full meaning behind the Grateful Dead bears, you have to look at the man who they were designed for: Owsley “Bear” Stanley.

Who was Owsley Stanley?

In addition to being the band’s sound engineer in the early days, Stanley was also the chemist behind the creation and distribution of a large portion of the LSD that was being consumed in the United States in the 1960s and beyond.

Owsley “Bear” Stanley both engineered and recorded to tape many of the shows that the Grateful Dead performed in the 60s and 70s. In this way, the entire tape trading culture that surrounded the Grateful Dead can be traced back to him.

Stanley always recorded soundboard masters when he ran sound at a show, and inevitably the tapes ended up in the hands of Deadheads. Jerry Garcia and the rest of the band didn’t mind, and later encouraged fans to record their shows, and it spread from there.

That’s a story another day, but basically, Bear Stanley was an extremely important person to both the Grateful Dead and the countercultural movement of the 1960s.

Bear also designed the Steal Your Face logo in collaboration with Bob Thomas, and the Grateful Dead bears were inspired by his association with the band.

The first appearance of the Grateful Dead bears in the public sphere was on the back cover of the Bear’s Choice album.

As the name implies, the live recordings that appear on the album were hand-picked from Stanley’s personal archives by Owsley himself, with minimal input from the band.

Before the album and the bears, there existed a 36-point lead slug that was used in printing as a font type. Thomas used that leaden bear as his basis for the design, which features a more cartoon style bear doing the “dancing” motion.

There are eight different Grateful Dead bears on the album cover, in colors red, orange, yellow, green, and blue, plus the often-overlooked brown, gray, and black bears. The bears have since been recreated in many different colors and patterns, both on official and non-official merchandise.

Stanley later clarified on his website that while the bears are commonly perceived to be dancing, they are actually doing a high step march.

It’s a lot more fun to imagine the bears dancing along to the music, though, so we’re happy to pretend that Bear never made that distinction.

Around this time, the dancing bears started appearing on Owsley Stanley’s blotter art, which also happened to be in heavy circulation at Grateful Dead concerts.

So, people were tripping on Owsley’s dancing bear acid while watching the Grateful Dead, who had recently released a live album with the bears on the cover. It’s easy to see how the symbol became so heavily associated with the band, and has come to represent the music, the energy, and of course, the LSD.

Soon fans began to bootleg the original Grateful Dead bears as well as spin-off designs onto t-shirts, stickers, and whatever else they could dream up.

All of a sudden people were wearing the bears at Dead shows and elsewhere, and the symbol continued to gain momentum while also being free advertising for the band. This continued for 20+ years after the bear was first introduced, and still continues to this day.

What Came First: The Bears or the Blotter Art?

While Bear’s own website credits Bob Thomas as the designer of the dancing bears, and the album cover as the original source of the design, Extra Chill Community member Eric M. Bram shares a tidbit that suggests the bears may have actually originated in Owsley’s LSD laboratory, and later appeared on the album cover.

According to Bram, artist Bob Thomas told this to a copyright attorney in the 90s, after the attorney had reached out about the source of the copyright. Hearsay stories about the Grateful Dead are common, but it does seem plausible that Bear would not want to publicly admit to having originally put the design on LSD blotter art, for legal reasons. Food for thought!

Closing Thoughts

It’s incredible to see the impact and influence that the Grateful Dead have had on American pop culture, both through their music and the tie-dye tinted art associated with it. The culture is still going strong over 25 years after the band played their final concert, and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Other bands have their symbols, but none have quite the same iconic status and relevancy in the modern world as the symbols of the Grateful Dead.