Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, best known as the female vocalist of The Grateful Dead, has died at the age of 78. She passed away on Sunday, November 2 at Alive Hospice in Nashville, Tennessee, after a lengthy battle with cancer. Her family confirmed this and released a brief statement also noting, “She was a sweet and warmly beautiful spirit, and all those who knew her are united in loss. The family requests privacy at this time of grieving. In the words of Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, ‘May the four winds blow her safely home’.”
Donna Jean was was born on August 22, 1947 in Florence, Alabama. She started her music career as a session singer in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and even appeared as a backup singer on two #1 hits: “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge in 1966 and “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis Presley in 1969. She also sang backup on sessions with Cher, Duane Allman, Neil Diamond, Boz Scaggs.
She later moved to California in 1970 where she would meet and marry Keith Godchaux, the keyboardist who succeeded the legendary Pigpen in the early ’70s. She was the one who introduced Keith to Jerry Garcia after a solo gig in San Francisco in 1971. “I told Jerry that Keith needed to be in the band and I needed his home phone number, and I got his number!” she recalled. Both joined the band soon after.
Donna provided backing and lead vocals for The Grateful Dead. During their membership in the band, the couple also issued the mostly self-written Keith & Donna album in 1975 with Jerry Garcia as a Keith and Donna Band member. In turn, they also performed part-time in the Jerry Garcia Band. Godchaux-MacKay admitted that signing live was difficult to adjust to as a studio singer as she was “used to having headphones and being in a controlled environment.”
She appeared on seven of Grateful Dead’s albums, including Europe ’72, Wake of the Flood, Steal Your Face and Shakedown Street. Her and Keith departed The Grateful Dead together in 1979 and formed their own band, Ghosts, which was later renamed Heart of Gold Band. After Keith Godchaux’s untimely death in 1980 in a car accident, she took a temporary hiatus from music. She eventually married bassist David MacKay and moved back to Florence, Alabama.
She did not perform again with any Grateful Dead band members until after the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995 but would remain a fixture in the scene until her death. Godchaux-MacKay occasionally made guest appearances with Bob Weir & RatDog, Zero & Steve Kimock, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Dark Star Orchestra and Dead & Company and also continued to be involved in archival Grateful Dead projects.
Godchaux-MacKay would go on to front her own group, known as both Donna Jean and the Tricksters and then later the Donna Jean Godchaux Band. Her last studio album, Back Around with musician Jeff Mattson, was released in 2014. Abut the album, and life in general, Godchaux-MacKay noted, “You can’t make up for what isn’t there anymore, but you can continue on a journey that takes you somewhere. One of the lyrics in ‘Back Around’ is, ‘Looking for what might have been can tear you down.’ If you keep looking back, you got nothing. If you look ahead to what is there before you, then life is good.”
Godchaux was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead in 1994, and was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2016. She is survived by her husband David and one son from each of her two marriages.
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