The Betty Boards Foundation, a new charitable organization from Music’s Promise and Positive Legacy, will raise money for legendary Grateful Dead audio engineer Betty Cantor-Jackson with an online auction. Money generated from the sale of vintage posters, concert tickets, virtual experiences, and a signed instrument will support Cantor-Jackson’s recovery from recent hip surgery and flood damage to her rental home.
Some of the most eye-catching items in the Betty Boards Foundation auction—running through September 14th—include a Les Paul-style guitar signed by B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, and Jeff Beck. Fans can also bid on a drum/percussion lesson from The String Cheese Incident’s Jason Hann, a vocal lesson with Furthur’s Sunshine Garcia, and a 30-minute “virtual serenade” by SCI guitarist/vocalist Bill Nershi and his wife Jilian.
The Capitol Theatre has put up two tickets for any show (including sold-out shows), while Brooklyn Bowl is offering an ultimate concert experience with tickets and shoe rentals for eight at the concert venue/bowling alley, and Dark Star Orchestra donated two tickets to its New Year’s Eve show at a venue to be announced. Other auction items include authentic ’70s Grateful Dead posters, as well as signed posters from Phil Lesh, The String Cheese Incident, and Zero. Cantor-Jackson is even offering her engineering services, auctioning off the chance to have your song personally mastered by the woman behind the famed “Betty Boards,” which became the gold standard for unofficial Grateful Dead live recordings.
Betty Cantor-Jackson and her friends established the Betty Boards Foundation to assist women in the live music industry facing significant hardships. The Foundation will provide financial support to allow women in the music industry to “reclaim their independence, elevate their craft, and thrive both personally and professionally.” Cantor-Jackson herself will be the organization’s first recipient, following up on a GoFundMe campaign launched for the 76-year-old engineer in June.
“Positive Legacy is thrilled to be working alongside the Betty Boards Foundation to support women in production,” Positive Legacy Executive Director Carrie Reppert said. “Betty’s recordings have touched countless lives and we are excited to be part of this initiative to support her and the work of this new Foundation, channeling the power of music for good.”
During her storied career, Cantor-Jackson recorded hundreds of concerts by the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia Band, Legion of Mary, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and other San Francisco luminaries. While Cantor-Jackson’s soundboard recordings, a.k.a. the “Betty Boards,” became highly coveted among the Dead’s vast network of tape-trading fans, the recordings officially entered the band’s extensive vaults in 2017. A few months later, the Dead used her recordings for an official release of Cornell 5/8/77, perhaps the most celebrated and mythologized concert in the band’s history. The album peaked at 25 on the Billboard 200. When asked in a 2020 Reddit AMA if she was paid fairly for her work that has since become canon and reissued in lavish and costly box sets, Cantor-Jackson wrote, “I got paid for the early [studio] albums. My compensation at this point is knowing people hear my work and like it.”
Check out the full lot of items up for sale for the Betty Boards Foundation auction, set to run through September 14th.