Owsley and Me (ePub)

LSD), and many others. While many Owsley recordings have been released, many more remain unissued.
Owsley was born (1935) into a prominent political family from Kentucky. His father was a government attorney. His grandfather, A. Owsley Stanley, a member of the United States Senate after serving as Governor of Kentucky and in the U.S. House of Representatives, campaigned against alcohol Prohibition. Owsley studied engineering at the University of Virginia before dropping out in 1956.He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served for eighteen months before being discharged in 1958. Later, inspired by a 1958 performance of the Bolshoi Ballet, he began studying ballet in Los Angeles, supporting himself for a time as a professional dancer. In 1963, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley where he became involved in the psychoactive drug scene. He dropped out after a semester, took a technical job at KGO-TV, and began producing LSD in a small lab located in the bathroom of a house near campus. His makeshift laboratory was raided by police on February 21, 1965. He beat the charges and successfully sued for the return of his equipment. The police were looking for methamphetamine but found only LSD, which was not illegal at the time.
In 1970, 19 members of the Grateful Dead and crew were busted at a French Quarter hotel after returning from a concert at "The Warehouse" in New Orleans, Louisiana for a combination of drugs.. Everybody in the band, except Pigpen and Tom Constanten, was included in the bust including s a man listed as Owsley Stanley, 35, of Alexandria, Virginia, a technician for the band, booked with illegal possession of narcotics, dangerous non-narcotics, LSD, and barbiturates. Ultimately Owsley was confined to Federal prison from 1970 to 1972, after a Federal judge intervened by revoking his release from the 1967 case. Stanley took advantage of the opportunity there to learn metalwork and jewelry-making.
Owsley died after an automobile accident in Australia on March 12, 2011. The statement released on behalf of Stanley's family said the car crash occurred near his home, on a rural stretch of highway near Mareeba, Queensland. He is survived by his wife Sheila, four children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.