Donna Jean Godchaux:
At the age of 78, passed suddenly. Donna Jean Godchaux, who was most famous for her work with the Grateful Dead in the 1970s. Donna Jean Godchaux provided background vocals on a number of timeless hits, such as Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” and Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds.” After a protracted fight with cancer, Donna Jean Godchaux passed away in a Nashville hospice, according to Rolling Stone. Her family released the following statement: “Everyone who knew her shares in this grief; she was a loving and truly beautiful soul.” During this trying time, the family asks for privacy. “May God rest her soul and lead her safely home,” as Grateful Dead songwriter Robert Hunter put it.
Donna Jean Godchaux was raised close across the Tennessee River from Muscle Shoals, where she started her career as a backing vocalist. She was born Donna Jean Thatcher on August 22, 1947, in Florence, Alabama. She performed on recordings in the 1960s with musicians like Neil Diamond, Presley, Sledge, Boz Scaggs, Duane Allman, and Cher. She met Grateful Dead member and pianist Keith Godchaux after relocating to California, and the two got married in 1970. She quickly became a member of the group and made her debut on Europe ’72, their triple live album.
Wake of the Flood, her first studio album with the Grateful Dead, was released in 1973 and was greatly influenced by her husband’s passion for modal jazz and bebop. Donna became a mother for the first time prior to the 1974 album From the Mars Hotel’s publication; she even appeared as “Madonna” on the record’s back cover. Before she and Keith quit the band in 1978, soon after Shakedown Street was released, she made appearances on six Grateful Dead studio albums. Jerry Garcia, the leader of the Grateful Dead, played guitar on the couple’s 1975 album Keith and Donna, which they published when they were in the band.
The two started a new band named the Heart of Gold Band in 1980. On July 23, 1980, Keith Godchaux, at 32 years old, tragically perished in a car accident a few days after their debut live performance. Afterwards, Donna wed bassist David MacKay, who was a member of Fiddleworms, a band based in Muscle Shoals. The two played together in her own band, the Donna Jean Godchaux Band. As a member of the Grateful Dead, she was admitted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Zion “Rock” Godchaux, who was born in 1974 and went on to form the electronic ensemble BoomBox, is her only surviving child.