Donna Jean Godchaux

Donna Jean Thatcher Godchaux-MacKay (born August 22, 1947) is an American singer, best known for having been a member of the Grateful Dead from 1972 until 1979.

Donna Jean Godchaux
Godchaux singing with her band, November 6, 2009, Blacksburg, Virginia
Background information
Birth nameDonna Jean Thatcher
Born (1947-08-22) August 22, 1947
Florence, Alabama, United States
Genres
Occupation(s)
InstrumentsVocals
Years active1966–present
Associated acts
Websitedonnajeangodchauxband.info

Biography

Donna Jean Thatcher was born in Florence, Alabama. Prior to 1970, she had worked as a session singer[1] in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, eventually singing with a group called Southern Comfort and appearing as a backup singer on at least two #1 hit songs: "When a Man Loves a Woman" by Percy Sledge in 1966 and "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley in 1969. Her vocals were featured on other classic recordings by Boz Scaggs and Duane Allman, Cher, Joe Tex, Neil Diamond and many others.[2][3] She then moved to California and met future fellow Grateful Dead member Keith Godchaux, whom she married in 1970.[4]

Donna introduced Keith to Jerry Garcia after Garcia's performance at San Francisco's Keystone Korner in September 1971. At the time, Donna Jean was not working as a musician. She joined the band shortly afterwards, remaining a member until February 1979.[5]

Donna Jean provided back-up and lead vocals in the group's music. During their membership in the Grateful Dead, 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 performed as part of the Jerry Garcia Band.

Keith and Donna's son, Zion "Rock" Godchaux of BoomBox, was born in 1974. After the Grateful Dead, the couple started the Heart of Gold Band.

Donna did not perform again with any Grateful Dead band members until after the death of Jerry Garcia. Shortly after her husband's death in 1980, she married bassist David MacKay (former Fiddleworms member and bassist for the Donna Jean Godchaux Band) and the couple moved to her childhood town of Florence, Alabama, to record at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.[6]

In 2009, Donna Jean formed a brand new band, the Donna Jean Godchaux Band, with Jeff Mattson (of Phil Lesh and Friends, Zen Tricksters, and Dark Star Orchestra), after re-entering the music scene with Mattson and Mookie Siegel (of David Nelson Band, Phil Lesh and Friends, and Ratdog) to form Kettle Joe's Psychedelic Swamp Revue, later known as Donna Jean & the Tricksters.[7] She occasionally makes guest appearances with Bob Weir & RatDog, Zero & Steve Kimock, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Dark Star Orchestra and Dead & Company.

In 1994, Donna Jean was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead.[8] She resides in Killen, Alabama, and remains an active member of the Muscle Shoals music scene when not touring with the Donna Jean Godchaux Band with Jeff Mattson.

Discography

As group leader or co-leader
Donna Jean Godchaux in 2008

With the Grateful Dead
Main article: Grateful Dead discography

Donna Godchaux was a member of the Grateful Dead from 1972 to 1979 and appears on many of the band's albums.[9]

With other artists

Donna Godchaux (née Donna Thatcher) has contributed background or lead vocals on many albums by different artists.[10]

Singles
Videos
Albums
gollark: Technically I could make potatOS preempt the thing force-rebooting it so that the user takes their fingers off the keys, but it doesn't do that.
gollark: However, the actual `reboot` command in the sandbox does *not* reboot it fully.
gollark: I can't get around that.
gollark: No, it does.
gollark: - PotatOS uses a single global process manager instance for nested potatOS instances. The ID is incremented by 1 each time a new process starts.- But each nested instance runs its own set of processes, because I never made them not do that and because without *some* of them things would break.- PotatOS has a "fast reboot" feature where, if you reboot in the sandbox, instead of *actually* rebooting the computer it just reinitializes the sandbox a bit.- For various reasons (resource exhaustion I think, mostly), if you nest it, stuff crashes a lot. This might end up causing some of the nested instances to reboot.- When they reboot, some of their processes many stay online because I never added sufficient protections against that because it never really came up.- The slowness is because each event goes to about 200 processes which then maybe do things.

See also

References
  1. Sprovtsoff-Mangus, Rachel. Donna Jean Godchaux biography on AllMusic
  2. "Donna Jean Thatcher Godchaux, Vocals" on LostLiveDead.com, January 7, 2016
  3. "Grateful Dead Family Discography: Donna Jean Godchaux Discography". www.deaddisc.com.
  4. Sprovtsoff-Mangus, Rachel. Keith Godchaux biography on AllMusic
  5. Browne, David. "Donna Jean Godchaux's Long, Strange Trip," Rolling Stone, March 4, 2014
  6. "Donna Jean MacKay 3/28/98". www.levity.com.
  7. "The birth of the Donna Jean Godchaux Band" Archived April 14, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, news.jamradio.org, March 3, 2009, Retrieved March 16, 2009.
  8. "Inductee Explorer". Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
  9. Donna Jean Godchaux — With the Grateful Dead at the Grateful Dead Family discography.
  10. Donna Jean Godchaux — With Others at the Grateful Dead Family discography.
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