It hasn’t been a great year for us fans of rock & roll. We’ve lost some key figures.
Now there’s one more. On Monday, we learned that Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, the only woman ever in the lineup of the Grateful Dead, passed away in Nashville after a battle with cancer. She was 78.
Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, a soulful mezzo-soprano who provided backing vocals on such 1960s classics as “Suspicious Minds” and “When a Man Loves a Woman” and was a featured singer with the Grateful Dead for much of the 1970s, has died at 78.
A spokesperson for Godchaux-MacKay confirmed that she died Sunday at Alive Hospice in Nashville after having cancer. Godchaux-McKay and other Grateful Dead members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
Born Donna Jean Thatcher in Florence, Alabama, she had yet to turn 20 when she became a session performer in nearby Muscle Shoals, where many soul and rhythm and blues hits were recorded, and also was on hand for numerous sessions at the Memphis-based American Sound Studio. Her credits included Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds,” Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” and songs with Neil Diamond, Boz Scaggs, and Cher.
Donna’s family released a statement:
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 and her then-husband and pianist Keith Godchaux performed with the Grateful Dead from 1971 to 1979. She also worked as a backup singer for Elvis Presley and Percy Sledge.
Here are a couple of samples of her great vocals from her time with the Grateful Dead; first, from the 1977 rock-opera album Terrapin Station, comes the stand-alone song, Sunrise.
And, from the 1978 album Shakedown Street, comes From The Heart of Me:
She had a great voice that fit really well with the Grateful Dead’s style, both live and in the studio.
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Personally, I’ll always remember Donna from her work with the Grateful Dead. I was in junior high and high school during most of the years she graced the stage alongside the other band members; I was a sophomore in high school when a friend recommended I go get the Dead’s then-new album, Terrapin Station, which featured Donna’s vocals. I thought she was great at the time – I still do – and insisted my brother, who was more a Beatles guy than a Grateful Dead fan, listen to the whole album. He did, after which we spent a couple of happy hours talking about it.
Keith and Donna left the Grateful Dead in 1979, hoping to start their own band, but Keith was killed in an automobile accident in 1980. Donna married again in 1981, to another musician, bass player David MacKay. Donna produced several stand-alone albums, including Back Around and Donna Jean and the Tricksters.
Donna is survived by her husband David MacKay, her sons Kinsman MacKay and Zion Godchaux, and her siblings Gogi Clark and Ivan Thatcher.
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