Remembering North Alabama native + Grateful Dead member Donna Jean Godchaux
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North Alabama is known for music, of course. And this weekend, North Alabama lost a music legend as former Grateful Dead member Donna Jean Godchaux passed away at the age of 78.
The Florence native was a member of the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band from 1972-1979.
Florence native Donna Jean Godchaux was a music legend
Godchaux was born in Florence in 1947 and was a backup singer and session musician in Muscle Shoals in the 60s and early 70s. In fact, she appeared on two number one songs as a backup singer (“When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge and “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis Presley).
In addition to those tunes, during her time as a session musician in Muscle Shoals she appeared on albums by:
- Cher
- Boz Skaggs
- Duane Allman
- Joe Tex
- Neil Diamond
- New Riders of the Purple Sage
- Zero
She moved to California in 1970 and eventually met her future husband, Keith Godchaux, and the couple joined the Grateful Dead in 1972. Her tenure with the band spanned seven years and six albums until leaving the band in 1979. Her husband died shortly after.
After her husband’s death, she moved back to Florence in 1980 and lived there with her second husband, David MacKay, until she was admitted into hospice in Nashville during a long bout with cancer. She passed away there on Sunday.
“It’s Southern music that has so influenced so much of the music that we hear all the time and have heard for decades and decades and decades. And so, I related to so much of it that nothing really took me by surprise. I’m going to put it like that. I was raised in the South and I knew the language and I knew the music.”
Donna Jean Godchaux
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