The Barton Hall boards, 5/8/77

Back in May 1986, a storage auction took place in California’s Marin County that offered quite the bounty for the a few lucky bidders in the days long before Storage Wars. Up for grabs amidst some other rock memorabilia were 1,000 reel-to-reel soundboard tapes of the Grateful Dead originally recorded by Betty Cantor-Jackson between 1971-80. The Betty Boards as they have come to be known, fell into private hands although eventually the shows found their way into circulation. The best known of these tapes, Cornell’s Barton Hall show from 5/8/77 was selected by the Library of Congress for the National Recording Registry in 2012, even if the masters were unavailable.

As part of the special Relix 40th anniversary issue, Relix editor-in-chief and Jambands.com founder Dean Budnick, shares the story of the Betty Boards and documents how Dark Star Orchestra’s Rob Eaton has restored many of these tapes (with a final batch in the works) which he hopes will be returned to the band and released with Cantor-Jackson receiving a production credit. Click here to read What’s Become of The Bettys.