The Grateful Lifeless have paid tribute to longtime collaborator Donna Jean Godchaux, following information of her dying at age 78.
“It’s with heavy hearts that we mourn the lack of Donna Jean Godchaux,” the band shared in an announcement posted to social media. “Her unmistakable voice and radiant spirit touched the lives of numerous followers and immeasurably enriched the Grateful Lifeless household. Her contributions will perpetually stay a part of the tapestry that continues to be woven.”
Godchaux handed away on Sunday (Nov. 2) at a hospice facility in Tennessee following a chronic battle with most cancers, based on her longtime publicist Dennis McNally. “She was a candy and warmly stunning spirit, and all those that knew her are united in loss,” McNally mentioned. “Within the phrases of Lifeless lyricist Robert Hunter, ‘Might the 4 winds blow her safely dwelling.’”
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Godchaux joined the Grateful Lifeless in 1971 alongside her husband, keyboardist Keith Godchaux, changing into a key a part of the band’s Nineteen Seventies sound throughout a transformative artistic interval. She sang on a number of of the group’s most enduring studio albums — together with Europe ’72, Wake of the Flood, and Terrapin Station — and appeared on many now-iconic stay recordings, together with the legendary Cornell ’77 present and the Lifeless’s 1978 live shows on the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
Along with her work with the Lifeless, Godchaux had an completed background as a session vocalist, acting on basic hits similar to Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds” and “Within the Ghetto,” in addition to Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Lady.” Her credit additionally included work with Cher, Neil Diamond, Boz Scaggs and Duane Allman.
After departing the Grateful Lifeless in 1979, the Godchauxs shaped the Coronary heart of Gold Band, which was lower quick by Keith’s tragic dying in a automotive accident the next yr. Donna Jean Godchaux returned to music within the Nineteen Eighties and continued recording and performing via the 2010s, together with with the Donna Jean Godchaux Band and on her closing album Again Round (2014).
Godchaux’s passing comes simply over a yr after the dying of founding Grateful Lifeless bassist Phil Lesh in October 2024. The remaining members of the prolonged Lifeless universe — together with Bob Weir and Mickey Hart — have continued to carry out with Lifeless & Firm, who celebrated the band’s sixtieth anniversary with a three-night run at San Francisco’s Oracle Park earlier this yr.
