From Newsgroup: alt.obituaries

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/donna-jean-dead-grateful-dead-vocalist-1235458509/

Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, who spent the Seventies singing
with the Grateful Dead, sang back-up on several classic Sixties
hits, and fronted her own bands, has died. She was 78.

Godchaux died Sunday, Nov. 2, at a hospice facility in Nashville
after a "lengthy struggle with cancer," according to a statement
shared with Rolling Stone by her representative, Dennis McNally.
"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," the statement continued. "In the
words of Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, 'May the four winds blow
her safely home.'"

Godchaux joined the Grateful Dead in 1971 alongside her husband,
Keith, who played keyboards. Her vocals were a key feature of
the Dead's seminal run during the Seventies, appearing on such
classic albums as Europe '72, Wake of the Flood, and Terrapin
Station, not to mention countless legendary live recordings
(including the famed Cornell '77 gig and the Dead's September
1978 shows at the Giza pyramid in Egypt).

Prior to joining the Dead, Godcheaux was working as an in-demand
session singer in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. She contributed to
hits like Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" and Elvis
Presley's "Suspicious Minds," while also singing on songs by
Duane Allman, Cher, Neil Diamond, and Boz Scaggs.

Godchaux and Keith also released one album together in 1975,
and were set to start a new band in the early Eighties before
Keith's sudden death. Later, Godchaux would front her own group,
alternately known as Donna Jean and the Tricksters and the
Donna Jean Godchaux Band. Her last studio album, with musician
Jeff Mattson, was released in 2014.

Born Donna Jean Thatcher in Florence, Alabama, Godchaux started
her career in nearby Muscle Shoals, which was then at the center
of a rock and soul renaissance during the 1960s. Along with
her work with artists like Sledge and Cher, she sang on R.B.
Greaves' "Take a Letter Maria" and Diamond's "Brother Love's
Traveling Salvation Show." She also worked with Joe Tex, Dionne
Warwick, and Ben E. King.

During this time, Godchaux also lived and worked in Memphis,
which is where she recorded with Presley in 1969. Along with
"Suspicious Minds," she sang on "In the Ghetto" and other songs
Presley cut at the American Sound Studio. It was, as Godchaux
told Rolling Stone in 2014, a "very intense" experience, though
she and the other vocalists "were so professional" when they
were singing.

After the session ended, though, she and the others took a
photo with the King and then "went into the International House
of Pancakes in Memphis and screamed bloody murder for about an
hour, holding up that little Polaroid picture of us and Elvis
together."

In 1970, Godchaux left the South and traveled out west, settling
in San Francisco. There, she met Keith and saw the Dead play
for the first time. After one concert at a local club, Godchaux
approached Jerry Garcia and pitched Keith to join: "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.

For Godchaux, playing with the Dead presented a new challenge.
As she told RS, she'd built her career as a studio singer, and
was "used to having headphones and being in a controlled
environment." Singing live was far more chaotic, and she
acknowledged that there are plenty of Dead recordings where
her vocals are pitchy.

"Everything was so loud onstage. And not to mention being
inebriated. I can't defend myself very much, but I can't blame
it all on that," she admitted with a laugh.

While the Dead were one of the most creatively formidable and
inventive groups of the Seventies, the decade also took its
toll. Godchaux's relationship with Keith was tumultuous, and
she was regularly drinking and using cocaine; Keith was also
using drugs and members of the Dead's crew recalled hearing
frequent screaming matches between the couple.

The Godchauxs left the Grateful Dead in 1979. "It was sad, but
it was what needed to happen," she said. "It was turning into
being not profitable for anybody. We needed to go, and they
needed for us to go."

The couple returned to Alabama with their son, Zion, and seemed
to find some peace. Having recorded and released one album in
1975, Keith & Donna, the couple formed a new group, the Heart
of Gold Band. They made some recordings, but soon after their
first concert in 1980, Godchaux died in a car accident. (Some
of the recordings were trickled out during the Eighties.)

In 1981, Godchaux remarried the Bay Area bassist David MacKay.
Her work in music was limited to occasionally singing at church
and appearing on a 1987 album by San Francisco band, Zero.
Godchaux and MacKay eventually formed their own indie label,
Heart of Gold Records, and in 1998 she released her debut album.
In 2004, she reformed the Heart of Gold Band, which released
a new record, At the Table.

Over the next few decades, Godchaux continued to tour and
perform, releasing what would be her last album, Back Around,
in 2014. She described the album as "my journey," with its mix
of Southern soul originals, covers of Sixties classic, and even
a rendition of a Grateful Dead song, "Crazy Fingers." The title,
she explained to Rolling Stone in 2014, referred to coming full
circle and to terms with her past.

"I have many regrets, of course, like you do about decisions
you make in life," she said. "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."
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Mark Shaw moc TOD liamg TA wahsnm ========================================================================
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