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Listen: Grateful Dead’s Candace Brightman On Her 40+ Years As A Lighting Designer

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DENVER, CO – From Jerry Garcia’s favorite color to lighting Madison Square Garden before moving lights and LEDs existed, Episode 7 of The Light Side travels back in time with one of Rock & Roll’s most inspirational LDs .

In this retrospective episode of The Light Side, legendary Grateful Dead lighting designer Candace Brightman discusses her 40+ year career lighting live music and explains her design process through four decades of technological evolution. She also reflects on being a woman in a male dominated industry and the role psychedelics played in her career. Her and host Luke Stratton discuss how she accidentally started working in the music industry, and what it was like working for such icons artists including the Dead, Santana, Bette Midler, Widespread Panic, and the GD50 Fare Thee Well shows.

This episode also includes a brief phone interview with GD50 promoter and Capital Theater owner Peter Shapiro, who recalls the impact Brightman’s work had on both the band and other designers… and he settles the “Santa Clara Rainbow Rumor” once and for all.

LINKS

The Light Side is available at lukestrattondesigns.com/thelightside and on iTunes, Google Play, and Sound Cloud.

Here is the SoundCloud link for embedding an audio player:

https://soundcloud.com/thelightsidepodcast/the-light-side-ep007-candace-brightman