By Scott McLennan

Donna Jean Godchaux was throwing down with her voice, just as the guys in the Grateful Dead were with their instruments.

Donna Jean Godchaux singing with her band in Blacksburg, Virginia, November 2009. Photo: WikiMedia

Donna Jean Godchaux changed the Grateful Dead – adding a Southern accent and feminine energy to this rough-hewn psychedelic troupe – and the Grateful Dead changed Donna Jean Godchaux – elevating her from session singer footnote to jam-scene royalty.

Godchaux made her debut with the Grateful Dead on New Year’s Eve of 1971, hopping on stage to share vocal duties with Bob Weir on one “One More Saturday Night.” For the next seven years, she played an integral role in the band’s evolving and expanding sound.

Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay died this week at the age 78.

Before that fateful New Year’s Eve at the Winterland Ballroom, Godchaux had helped her husband Keith secure his role as the keyboard player in the band. She probably also saw this as a chance to once again be a working musician, having earlier stepped away from her role as a session singer at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Among her early credits, she can be heard on Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds” and Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman.”

But Godchaux was working an office job in San Francisco when, acting on instinct, she introduced her husband to the Dead’s Jerry Garcia after hearing the guitarist at a club gig. At the time, the Dead were on the hunt for another keyboard player. But, like so many fans of the Grateful Dead, Donna Jean was enticed to “get on the bus.” And there she stayed, from 1972 through early 1979.

Donna Jean worked with the Dead through a period of explosive growth. The band was restructuring its psychedelic sprawl to fit the contours of the country, blues, and soul that songwriter Robert Hunter was drawing on with the songs he was producing for the group. Then the band swung toward more experimental and jazz-informed styles via long form compositions such as “Weather Report Suite” and “Terrapin Station.”

Donna Jean and Weir were often vocal partners in the Grateful Dead, and it was hardly a classic pairing in the traditional male-female duet format. They offered contrasting tones, sometimes clashing rather than blending—but that was the nature of the Dead’s improvisational mindset, and Donna Jean Godchaux was throwing down with her voice, just as the guys in the Grateful Dead were with their instruments.

But Donna Jean was rarely front and center with the Grateful Dead, contributing just a handful of lead vocals, including 1977’s “Sunrise” and 1978’s “From the Heart of Me.”

To get a better sense of Donna Jean’s depth and skills, check out her work with the Jerry Garcia Band. Garcia featured her prominently on his 1978 solo-band album Cats Under the Stars, and the archival concert recordings that have been released from that era when Donna Jean and Keith Godchaux both played in that group make the case that she was an undervalued member of the Grateful Dead mothership. In the Garcia band, Donna Jean anchors the excursions made into Southern soul and gospel. Likewise, she is a supportive partner for Garcia when he navigated surprising repertoire choices, such as the Rolling Stones’ “Moonlight Mile” (found on Garcia Live Volume 21: February 8, 1976, Keystone Berkeley, CA) and Paul McCartney’s “Let Me Roll It” (found on Pure Jerry: Jerry Garcia Band, Theatre 1839, San Francisco, July 29 & 20, 1977).

Donna Jean Godchaux at 2008 Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, CT. Photo: WikiMedia

Donna Jean and Keith also released an album on their own in 1975, when the Grateful Dead was on hiatus — everyone made a solo record with other members of the Dead. The album, more a curio for Dead fans than essential listening, conveys the couple’s love for Southern rhythm and blues, which filtered into the Dead’s kaleidoscopic sound.

The Godchaux couple left the Dead in early 1979, ostensibly to escape the drug and alcohol abuse that afflicted them. They formed a new group, the Heart of Gold Band, with Bay Area musicians who were still carrying the psychedelic torch, such as guitarist Steve Kimock and drummer Greg Anton.

Keith Godchaux died in 1980 from injuries sustained in an auto accident. Donna Jean married bassist David MacKay, and the couple stayed on the periphery of the jam rock scene with the band Donna Jean and the Tricksters.

In 2016, Donna Jean performed a handful of shows with the post-Garcia outfit Dead & Company, including a pair of concerts at Fenway Park in Boston. Wandering on Lansdowne Street before one of the shows, I spotted Donna Jean in a golf cart being whisked to wherever she needed to be. She was all smiles and waves to the fans cheering her presence. The 2016 shows marked the first time she sang in a band with Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann since 1979.

I caught the initial Fenway show, and Donna Jean emerged during its first set to dig into one of her main vehicles: “The Music Never Stopped.” Weir took the first verse. When Donna Jean stepped up, she delivered her crowd-pleasing line, ‘There’s a band out on the highway / They’re high-stepping into town.” They tripped over each other’s words, then regained their musical balance—working without a net, just like the old days.

Donna Jean was on and off that stage throughout the night, adding distinct color to the proggy “Help on the Way,” majestic “Terrapin Station,” rootsy “Casey Jones” and others.

We loved it. And we will miss her.

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.