Loading summary
Transcript163 lines
- [00:00]
Rich Mahan
Announcing Dogfish Head Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale Collaborating for over a decade now, Dogfish Head and Grateful Dead have crafted a light bodied pale ale brewed with sustainable kerns of grains, granola and heaps of good karma for a refreshing brew that's music to your taste buds. Check out dogfish.com for more details and to find some Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale in your neck of the woods. Dogfish Headcraft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware. Please drink responsibly the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast the Official Podcast of the Grateful Dead. I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarno exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious. Hello friends, welcome back to the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast. We've got a special one for you today. Our sole guest is the one and only Donna Jean GodShow McKay and here to tell her story of a life well spent making music. Don't forget all through this season Season four. You can get new episodes of the Good Old Grateful Dead cast right here every other week. Visit us at our website dead.netdeadcast and check out the extra materials we have for you to explore for this episode. Also@dead.net deadcast are all of our past episodes including the complete seasons 1, 2 and 3 and and you can link from there to any and all the podcasting platforms available so you can listen where you like to listen. We also have our three St. Louis episodes there for you, so if you miss those, make sure to check it out. They dive heavily into the music from the new St. Louis Listen to the river box set which is out now and includes seven previously unreleased concerts from from St. Louis recorded on December 9th and 10th, 1971 at the Fox Theater, October 17th, 18th and 19th, 1972 at the Fox Theater and the October 29th and 30th, 1973 shows at the Keel Auditorium. This production of this 20 CD box set, the packaging is you have to see it to believe it. It's beautiful. It's limited to 13,000 individually numbered copies and will also be available in its entirety as a digital download and exclusively@dead.net in Apple, Lossless and FLAC 19224 dead.net will also exclusively release Light Into Ashes, Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO 101872 as a double LP on 180 gram custom vinyl. This one's limited to 7200 copies and this set focuses on an exceptional hour plus jam plucked from the Dead's 10-18-72 show at the Fabulous Fox. The breakout show from this box set is Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO 1210 71. It's available as a 3 CD set and as a limited edition 5LP set, also on 180 gram vinyl. For more information on any of these configurations of Listen to the River, St. Louis 717273 just truck on over to dead.net well most folks know that Donna Jean Godsho McKay was a member of the Grateful Dead for most of the 70s. She and her husband Keith God show are an important part of the band through what many people will agree was their most creative and prolific era. But did you know before she moved to California and got on the bus that she was an in demand session vocalist on a multitude of hit records? Get ready for an in depth look at the musical life of Donna Jean GodShow McKay. Now let's get this story started with your friend and mine, Jessie Jarno.
- [04:02]
Narrator/Singer
Here she starts Hear her cry Follow the sea bed Standing like lost birds we'll hear the storm.
- [04:23]
Jesse Jarno
Don and Jean God show sang with the Grateful dead from early 1972 through early 1979, but you probably already knew that.
- [04:50]
Narrator/Singer
Everybody'S dancing.
- [04:53]
Jesse Jarno
But before that she was Donna Thatcher.
- [04:58]
Narrator/Singer
Did you ever stand at Shiver Just because you were looking at a river? Did you ever stand and wonder that the life you lead is slowly sleeping on earth?
- [05:21]
Jesse Jarno
That was on the rocks From Tim Davis album Pipe Dream, her last credit as Donna Thatcher probably recorded in 1971, just before meeting the Grateful Dead. It was an epilogue to the first phase of an already illustrious career that began in the early 60s, around the same time the Warlocks were starting to figure out how to play together. There were a lot of differences between the early careers of the Grateful Dead and Donna Thatcher. Perhaps the biggest is that she can be heard on radio stations and jukeboxes, coast to coast.
- [06:02]
Narrator/Singer
Misery if she played for a fool he's the last one to know More loving eyes can never see A lot.
- [06:19]
Jesse Jarno
Of her story has remained untold to tell it Please welcome to the good old grateful dead cast, Mrs. Donna Jean Godchaux McKay. We'll start right at the beginning.
- [06:28]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
My dad's name was Chet Thatcher and he was a pilot and that's how he actually passed was was in a plane crash and my mother's name was Jamie, so she was Jamie Jeffries and she married Chet Thatcher and then little Donna Jean was born and all hell broke loose.
- [06:53]
Jesse Jarno
Like many members of the Grateful Dead, at least one of her parents was involved with music.
- [06:57]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
My dad played a little guitar and sang a little and he and his Sister used to sing on the radio in Texas somewhere, but not really, you know, on a big scale at all. I couldn't tell you when or what station or even what town or anything. But I know that Daddy told me that he and Dixie sang. He played guitar, and they both sang on a radio show. And I don't think it was like, you know, a weekly show or something like that, but they had maybe sung a couple of times or something on some radio show. And I couldn't tell you where that was at, but I remember my dad sitting with a guitar many, many, many times and playing guitar, you know, at our house. But as far as a musical family, outside of my dad playing guitar, I don't know where I fell off the truck. But my mother's side of the family are all super intellectuals. They're all business owners. My mother's sisters, brothers. My mother's brother was a NASA brain trust, and he helped develop the wheels for the moon buggy that went on the moon. And he did so many, so many things that he never told anybody because everything was so top secret. We didn't know anything about him almost until he died. And Werner von Braun came to his funeral and people were talking about what he had done. He invented. My uncle invented the heart monitor for NASA. That's when it was first used. And my uncle invented it. And so all of my uncles were like that, very intellectual and engineers. All my mother's sisters were business owners. And Keith always told me, he said, you should have been a lawyer.
- [09:01]
Jesse Jarno
Because.
- [09:01]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I'm so analytical and everything. But I did fall off the truck somewhere. My mother was a mathematician. She had the first college here in this area teaching IBM to people when nobody had even heard of IBM. And so I come from a real intelligent family. And I said, Like I said, I don't know where I fell off the truck, but I corrupted. I just corrupted from almost day one. And I don't know. I don't know how. I don't know how that gene got in me, but it never went away. I don't know where I got it, really. I just knew that I had to sing and I had to have music in my life, period. I remember distinctly just loving music so much that it just took up every space in my head when I was 6 years old and I started listening on the radio to the popular ladies of that era, like Jo Stafford.
- [10:08]
Narrator/Singer
Just remember, darling, all the while.
- [10:15]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
You.
- [10:16]
Narrator/Singer
Belong to me.
- [10:21]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
And Gogi Grant.
- [10:22]
Narrator/Singer
The wayward wind.
- [10:26]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Is a restless wind A restless wind.
- [10:33]
Narrator/Singer
That yearns to wander.
- [10:37]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Just so many of those from that era. And I would listen on the radio and I would learn all of the words to the popular songs and learn the melody. And then I just fell into naturally when I was that young, finding the harmony parts. And so the next time the. The song would play on the radio, I would sing the harmony part. And so then I would learn all three parts to the song. And this was when I was very, very young. And so I just automatically could hear harmony from that early age. And of course that progressed. I wrote my first song when I was 9 years old and I was taking piano lessons and I played for my teacher, my piano teacher. I said, I wrote this song and I want you to hear it. And she wrapped my fingers, said, don't ever do that again. And it just shocked me because that was where I was at. I wanted to write music. She was just, you don't play anything musical unless it's written on that page. That was the last time that I had a piano lesson with her. But when I was 12 years old, I had written a song about my boyfriend. And when I was 12 and I had, I entered a talent contest here in Florence, Alabama, at the local TV station. And they were putting on this contest. And so I went on and played the piano and sang a song that I wrote and I won that talent contest at 12.
- [12:21]
Jesse Jarno
The song was named after her boyfriend.
- [12:24]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
His name was Gene. And he was so embarrassed. This was like in junior high school. And he was so embarrassed that I had written this song about him and was singing it publicly, as you can imagine. Oh, my gosh, no. I think he was 13. He was in a. In and a grade ahead of me. And so I was in love with an older man.
- [12:51]
Keith Godchaux
Oh.
- [12:51]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
But I really did think I was in love. I met a boy, his name was Gene. You know, all of that. Goodness gracious.
- [12:59]
Jesse Jarno
But more than her family, given where Donna was from, it would be surprising if she didn't fall into music.
- [13:04]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I was born here in the Muscle Shoals area, so when I was 12 years old, recording studios started popping up here, just all over the place, really. And I don't know if it was in the water, whatever it was, but something was going on here that just created this atmosphere for anyone who was creative minded and especially musically creative. Just came together like in a wad, you know, and we just grew up together doing this, you know, when I was in junior high school. So it was a pretty good startup, you know, for somebody in the northwest.
- [13:48]
Jesse Jarno
Corner of Alabama, the musical center of gravity in the Muscle Shoals area was Fame Studios. Originally founded above a drugstore in Florence, FAME moved down the road to Muscle Shoals and evolved over the early 60s into one of the premier American hit factories. FAME was an abbreviation for Florence Alabama Music Enterprises, and it became an umbrella for songwriters, musicians and publishers, as well as inspiring a local music industry. One of the local studios was owned by DJ Quentin Ivy, who also owned Toontown, the record store right across the street. The studio is sometimes called Nor Ala from North Alabama, but Donna knew it as Quinvy. She was the first to record there.
- [14:28]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
It was a song called I'm out of Touch, and I think Quinn wrote it. I'm not sure about that, but it was a little teeny Bopper, Leslie Gore type song. And I started doing demos in that studio. Yeah, when I was a teenager. Oh, my gosh. All the people that I grew up with that were in the music business already, you know, we were teenagers together, you know, like Roger Hawkins and David Hood and Jimmie Johnson and Spooner Oldham and all of these guys who are now national treasures when it comes to studio recording. And having played on so many hit records, they were the people that I grew up with, my friends. And so it was a very relational, organic thing that happened with all of us down here. It still remains. I'm back in Muscle Shoals now, and these people are still some of my best friends in the world and always will be. So it was always kind of a family affair on a certain level. But it was. I wouldn't take anything for having that upbringing. And so, needless to say, I started singing and doing demos at Fame studio and other studios. Quinn Ivey was my manager at the time. When I was a teenager, I remember ABC Paramount wanted to sign me and make me the next Leslie Gore or something like that. And I ended up. A car hit me in Florida and nearly took my legs and my foot off. So that kind of curtailed that business right there. And I'm glad that it did. I'm glad that it did because I. I would have gone another way. And I. I'm glad I went the way that I did. Let's put it that way. I was 18 when that happened. 17 going on 18.
- [16:34]
Jesse Jarno
When she recovered, Donna's career really took off, thanks to a friend she met around the studios, Jeanne Green.
- [16:40]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Well, Jeannie was four or five years older than me, and she had actually. She was signed with RCA Victor when she was 13 and had singles out, a great singer. I was doing mainly demo sessions at the time when I first met Jeanne, and so obviously we were at Fame, or I was singing at Fame, doing some kind of demo work, and then Jeannie was there to do something else, and we just automatically connected and started singing together. You know, when chances for demos or sessions came up, you know, we were just there. I mean, like I said, we grew up organically having things pieced together as we went, and nobody having any, you know, grandiose desires, you know, to do anything except what was in the moment. And we took advantage of every moment and made music. That's what we did.
- [17:44]
Jesse Jarno
Jeannie's husband was Marlon Green.
- [17:46]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Marlon kind of. Well, not kind of. He did produce When a Man Loves a Woman.
- [18:12]
Narrator/Singer
Baby, please don't treat me bad.
- [18:18]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Percy Sledge, who sang When a Man Loves a Woman, was just an orderly at the hospital here in Sheffield, Alabama, which is part of the Muscle Shoals area. And Percy was in the hospital. And I remember Jeanne Green and I went to his hospital room and took the Billboard magazine to show him that When A Man Loves a Woman was number one in the nation. I mean, that's how organic and just ground, you know, from the ground. Down home. Down home. Thank you.
- [19:10]
Narrator/Singer
I know exactly how you feel.
- [19:25]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
That was the initial bud of what became Southern Comfort, which was our vocal group name. You know, I'm trying to go through kind of piece by piece, how all of this happened.
- [19:38]
Jesse Jarno
A lot of it was Jeanie Green.
- [19:40]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Very much a mentor. She's the one who initially put together Southern Comfort, our voice group, and was the instigator and the, you know, the mother behind the whole thing. I mean, she was incredible, and she taught me so much, and, you know, we were very, very good friends. In fact, when she passed a few years ago, I spoke at her. Her memorial. I'll just never forget what she put into me and how she made it possible for me to be talking with you today. It was so much fun. And it was at a time when the music was just crackling here in Muscle Shoals and big time. And we didn't realize that we were making history. None of us did. You know, we just wanted to play music. That's as far as that went, really, as far as our understanding of what could be and what was about to happen and was in the beginnings of a worldwide musical expression coming out of a little tiny berg in Alabama.
- [20:56]
Jesse Jarno
Some music scenes are based around clubs or record stores. This one lived in the otherworldly space of recording studios at that time, not.
- [21:04]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Really places to hang out outside the studio. Most everything was relationally happened within the studio structure. And that's where we kind of congregate. And I would be come. I was a cheerleader. And so sometimes I would have to come from cheerleader practice to the recording studio MC Fame in my little cheerleading outfit. And the guys still talk about that. They remember me coming in my little short uniform. Anyway, I could go on and on about things like that. But I remember being at Fame many times with Spooner, Oldham and Dan Penn, like writing ortho for Aretha Franklin, just, you know, smoking their cigarettes and on the piano and just hanging out. That's what we did. We just hung out together. And it turned into something that is such history, it's incredible. And I still say to this day that you never know when you're making history.
- [22:10]
Jesse Jarno
Over the course of the 60s, fame churned out hits featuring Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, and many more. And like other hit factories of the era, it didn't always properly credit the musicians involved in the productions, like the vocal group known as Southern Comfort. It's hard to put together a complete list of the singles and LPs on which Donna Jean performed, but we know a bunch.
- [22:33]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I remember singing on Cher's first solo album that she did in Muscle Shoals.
- [23:05]
Jesse Jarno
That was I Walk on Gilded splinters from Cher's 1969 album, 3614 Jackson Highway. You can see Donna on the front cover in a black hat, standing between Jeannie Green and producer Tom Dowd.
- [23:18]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Of course, Elvis Presley. But that was in Memphis at American Sound Studio, where we did Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto and many of the other songs that were on his comeback schedule.
- [23:31]
Narrator/Singer
We can't go on together we're suspicious lies suspicious and we can build our dreams on Suspicious Man.
- [23:48]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
That was a tremendous, tremendous surprise at Elvis Presley asking us to be on his record. He was wonderful. He was so generous. And let's see, how would I describe Elvis Presley? He was very generous and accepting and encouraging and just a really sweet guy to us. We have this one photo that is the only photo that exists of us with Elvis. And it's online. You can see it pretty much anywhere. But having our picture made with Elvis Presley was just like, you've got to be kidding me. If I had known when I was 10 years old, going to the theater to see Love Me Tender, that I would be singing with that guy, I don't think I could have lived falling.
- [24:48]
Narrator/Singer
I can't walk out Because I love you too much Baby, you know I caught in a trap.
- [25:04]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We did a bunch of stuff in Memphis with Neil diamond.
- [25:07]
Narrator/Singer
And starting soft and slow Like a small earthquake and when he lets go Half the valley shakes its love Brother my dead brother loves travel and salvation Show Pack up the babies and grand the old ladies and everyone goes Everyone know that.
- [25:39]
Jesse Jarno
Southern Comfort was a hot commodity recording a few standalone singles of their own. This is Milk and Honey, released in 1969 on Cotillion.
- [25:50]
Narrator/Singer
You took my hand and showed me a leg Filled with milk and honey Sugar was sweet and it felt so good and every day was sunny I never did cry.
- [26:15]
Jesse Jarno
For another single, they took on a slightly different identity.
- [26:17]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Are you familiar with the blues artist Eddie Hinton? Eddie was the singer and this other configuration that we had. The living example. Yeah, we were the living example. And we did Leaving on a Jet Plane and released that as a single on Atlantic.
- [26:53]
Narrator/Singer
I wanna get brave I don't know when I'll be back again.
- [27:06]
Jesse Jarno
A new era was coming at Muscle Shoals and.
- [27:09]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Boz Skaggs came and he was a Californian and, you know, we were not used to kind of the psychedelic aspect of things. And so it was a real unique experience being on the Boss Skaggs record with Duane Allman. And so I met him, but we didn't hang out together. But it was kind of fun for us as a vocal group and I guess the musicians as well, you know, we were used to the RB thing down here and Here Comes San Francisco. And so it was a whole new thing that happened with us, you know, mentally and everything else musically to do this session with Boss Skaggs, it was very different and it was very San Francisco. And so we were charged at getting to do something like that. It was fun. I loved Boz Skaggs and Jan Winner was his manager at that time. And Jan was there. And so we hung out a lot with Boz and Jan Winter.
- [28:14]
Jesse Jarno
Donna sang with brother Duane Allman several times, including the self titled 1970 debut by Judy Mahan. No relation to my co host Rich. Duane Allman had wanted to be involved in Muscle Shoals so badly that he left his brother Greg in LA and lived in a tent in the Muscle Shoals parking lot. This is Duane Allman's Dobro and Donna Jean's vocals with Southern Comfort on Look what I've got from the 1969 album Boz Skaggs.
- [28:40]
Narrator/Singer
Look what I've got myself Look I'm hard to.
- [28:47]
Jesse Jarno
She.
- [28:47]
Narrator/Singer
Don't mistreat me like you used to do Just look what I've done Come home to you Treat me right I Be coming home to you.
- [29:11]
Jesse Jarno
Donna sang with Dionne Warwick, Joe Tex on Take A letter, Maria by RB Greaves and more. But things were changing. Around 3614 Jackson Highway, Jeannie Green and.
- [29:20]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I were the only people with long hair in muscle shells. And we had our beads and our peace sign and, you know, our headbands and long hair and all that. We were the only people. And so we got really stared at a lot because we were so different. It was then that I heard the name the Grateful Dead. And I remember going, ooh, that's terrible. You know, who would name their band the Grateful Dead? That's awful. And I, of course, thought that they must be just the deepest, darkest, weirdest people in the world. And, you know, I had no thoughts or intentions or anything of ever being a part of that situation. But I did. I did want to go to California really, really badly. And so, after five years of a real lucrative career here in Muscle Shoals, I had to tell Jerry Wexler, I'm leaving the group and I'm going to. Going to California. And it was not really for another musical direction. It was adventure. I wanted a new adventure in my life. And I picked up and went to San Francisco. And that's when everybody loved the Grateful dead.
- [31:09]
Jesse Jarno
In early October 1970, Donna's work friends from Union Oil dragged her to Winterland for a pretty incredible 4 ban bill that changed her life.
- [31:18]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I said, I'm not taking any drugs. I'm just gonna show you guys how crazy you are. And it's just drugs. That's why you like that band. And so I didn't even. I smoked nothing. I took nothing. And I was on the back row of the balcony of Winterland. I remember the new writers played, Quicksilver played, and then the Airplane played and then the great. Which I thought, well, wow, this is kind of. This is kind of cool. They can play music. And then the Grateful Dead came on and they were magical. And I mean, it was like something that I had never heard before. And it literally, the expression blew my mind. I was about all of that at that time. And I just couldn't believe that they could do that. And I remember saying to myself, and probably anybody around me, how do they do that? And I was just like, floored. And I turned to the person next to me and I said, when I sing again, it's going to be with that band. Because when I went to California in San Francisco, and I, you know, it was not directed, you know, just to have another musical experience. It was to have an adventure. I had no thoughts about what I was going to do next musically until I saw the Grateful Dead. And I went, okay, when I sing again, it's going to be with that band that started that ball rolling.
- [33:31]
Jesse Jarno
We talked at length about that October 4, 1970 Winterland show in both the Till the Morning Comes episode in our American Beauty season and our episode about Keith Gotcha earlier this season. Just as importantly, becoming a Deadhead brought Donna even deeper into a new group of friends.
- [33:47]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We all had kind of a little group of folks. Some of us were working at Union Oil in San Francisco, and one of the girls that worked there was friends with Keith. And so Keith was in kind of this group of us who went and we would see the Grateful Dead. And Keith was so shy, and I had never really talked to Keith. And then I just found myself falling in love with this guy. And I had never talked to him. He was feeling the same way. And I remember going to Walnut Creek, where my friend Carol lived, and she said, oh, well, I'm going to invite Keith over. And I thought, oh, great. This is. This is great. But I didn't. I didn't. Had never heard him play piano before. And she told me that, you know, he did play piano. And I thought, yeah, everybody plays piano. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And so us getting together had nothing to do with us coming together as musicians. It was just. We just fell in love.
- [35:00]
Keith Godchaux
Keith and I had never talked before, really. And when we did talk, he said, well, this was at Carol's house, and she had gone to bed with, you know, the guy that she was living with. And Keith was getting ready to leave, and we still hadn't talked. You know, he had come to visit. She had asked him to come. You know, she knew that I was coming from the city and blah, blah, blah. Long story short, Keith was getting ready to leave, and he just looked at me. It was one of those things across the room. And he said, well, I love you. And I said, well, I love you, too. And so we sat down on the couch and talked about when we were going to get married. And I still never heard him play the piano.
- [35:47]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
It was after I got with Keith that I heard him play. And it was at Clifford's Night's Inn in Concord, California. And he was in a little jazz trio. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this guy is the real deal. And I couldn't believe how fabulous he was on the piano. And I was just flabbergasted that I was in love with this guy that was this fabulous a musician. And it so happened that when I was there that night at the Clifford's Nights Inn and listening to them, that remember the olden days when the band would take a break and there would be the jukebox little thing at each booth and you could pick out music. Everything that came on that, you know, out of that situation was songs that I had sung on. It just so happened. And I said, I sang on that Keith. And he goes. And I remember Keith going, she's a hauling ass singer.
- [37:08]
Jesse Jarno
Clifford's nights in good memory, Donna. With those coordinates, I was able to find an old news clipping about The Jerry Michaels Four, the house band with a rarely seen photo of a 22 year old Keith God show in front of an upright piano only a few months before meeting his soon to be wife. We've Posted it@dead.net Deadcast we started working on music.
- [37:28]
Keith Godchaux
Eventually some of them turned up on the Keith and Donna album. So we were already, you know, we were. We already had our musical interests.
- [37:38]
Jesse Jarno
But then the cosmic gears shifted.
- [37:41]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
This was not even a year.
- [37:45]
Keith Godchaux
Before.
- [37:45]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We joined the Dead. And I remember coming home from Union Oil one day. This was after Keith and I. No, it wasn't after we were. Yes, it was. It was after we were married. I said, let's listen to some Grateful Dead. And Keith said, I don't want to listen to it anymore, I want to play it. And I said, okay, well, let's go get in the band. The whole thing was magical. When I had initially talked to Jerry down at Keystone in San Francisco when he was playing with his band, and I touched his arm when he was going off stage for a break and told him, you know, Keith and I have something to talk to you about. My husband and I have something to talk to you about. And he said, well, come on backstage and you know, I'll hear what you have to say. And Keith and I were way too nervous to go backstage and so we didn't. And Garcia came out from the backstage and sat in the audience with us and said, well, what is it? And I said, well, I need your home telephone number so that I can call you and set up a time for us to. Oh, I can't believe I even did that to come, because Keith is your next piano player. And he gave me his home phone number and the number for the office. And I said, I will try the office first and if I can't get you there, then I'll. I will call your home phone, but not before. And so I would call the office. And I would say, this is Donna Godshow. And Jerry asked me to call, and so I'm calling. And they never gave him the message. And so I called his home phone, and he said, well, we're going to be rehearsing on Sunday, and you guys come on down. And so we came to. To rehearsal, and the band had forgotten to tell Jerry that rehearsal had been called off. And it was that frontage road in San Rafael. But anyway, we got there and it was just Jerry, and he apologized that the band wasn't there. And so Jerry and Keith played, and it was magical. They just started jamming together, and it was magical. And Jerry called Kreutzman to come down. And so Jerry and Kreutzman and Keith played together, and it was magical. And I had brought some tapes that Keith and I had made of us playing and singing together. And it was all very. It was just crackling with this spiritual type energy. The full Grateful Dead rehearsal was the next day. And so Jerry, Sid, will, you know, come on to rehearsal. And by the end of Monday, which was the next day, Keith played with the. With the whole band. And he was in the band that day.
- [41:00]
Jesse Jarno
The next day, the first day, Keith and Donna had hung out with Garcia. They brought some of their demo recordings with him.
- [41:06]
Keith Godchaux
Some of the stuff we played. Garcia, when he first played with him, that, you know, that day we had our reel to reel recorder with songs that we had written in rock and roll, Things get lost. And I don't know what happened to those tapes, but I would get anything if I had them.
- [41:25]
Jesse Jarno
But in addition to hearing Keith's piano playing, Garcia also heard Donna sing. Oddly, her Muscle Shoals background didn't come up at all.
- [41:33]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We just never really talked about it. And the whole time I was with the band, that never was really anything that was talked about that was incorporated in me getting in the band. It was just not the language that was spoken at the time. It was just all about. And I didn't care about that. I just wanted to sing with the Grateful Dead. And they asked me to sing with them when Keith joined. And I said, no, I want Keith to get to do it first. And so as Keith was rehearsing with them, I would just sit and listen and listen and start learning the harmony parts and how to relate to their kind of vocal harmonizing, which is different than what I had been used to. It had been more the classical way that you see, and thirds and fifths and this and that. And the Grateful Dead singing was not like that. You Know, they would switch parts to where a lot of times I couldn't tell who was singing lead because the parts would interchange in such an unusual pattern. And so I kind of had to relearn in my head how to think about harmony, which really taught me a lot. And I credit Muscle Shoals a lot for my upbringing and experience in the studios that I carried with me, of course. But then the Grateful Dead taught me a lot about getting out of that kind of box into another mindset about how to sing harmony. And so Keith did two tours with them.
- [43:19]
Jesse Jarno
Music from Keith God Show's early tours with the Dead can be heard on the new Listen to the River St. Louis 717273 box set. This is Keith conversing with Garcia during playing in the band at the fox Theater on December 10, 1971.
- [44:03]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We talked every day and. And he was like a fish out of water. He was so scared, you know, he was so not scared. He was so shy. He was just a very low key, as far as he wasn't Greg Darius, you know, he was more inward. And so I was really the person that he could go, oh, my gosh. You know. Anyway, yeah, we talked every night. Once Keith got talking, he was very, very deep. So he was a deep thinker. He was also legitimately a genius. And so his things that got him interested in talking about were very deep things. He wasn't superficial in any way. And so it had to be a subject that really engaged him and engaged who he was.
- [45:09]
Jesse Jarno
In the very early morning of January 1, 1972, Donna stepped on stage for the first time with the Grateful Dead.
- [45:16]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
And then I was ready and I thought, pretty set to join. And so that's when I ended up singing with him that New Year's Eve. I was just so overwhelmed by, number one, being on a stage, which I had never been on number two with the Grateful Dead, you know, and it was just like, oh, my gosh. And then the audience, who never heard, you know, a female sing with the Grateful Dead, and I just thought, are they going to absolutely hate me? Are they going to start throwing eggs and tomatoes on the screen stage? You know, so it was, you have to be tough, you know, getting into the Grateful Dead situation. And, you know, really, you had to know who you were and what you were about to be able to stand up in that kind of situation. And somehow or other I just pressed it through, and it was. Those years with the Grateful Dead are my greatest memories of all time.
- [46:25]
Jesse Jarno
Before Donna got on stage with the Grateful Dead on a more regular basis. In early 1972, she joined the rest of the Dead as the backing band on Bob Weir's solo debut, Ace.
- [46:48]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
It was a kind of a preemptive thing of getting me involved, more specifically in singing with the Grateful Dead. And I just. To this day, Bobby is one of my best friends. I love that guy. We are. We're brothers and sisters.
- [47:03]
Narrator/Singer
This here is Donna, and she's going.
- [47:05]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
To help us out on this next one. He always says this here.
- [47:10]
Jesse Jarno
Besides starting to integrate her into the band, the Ace sessions proved important for another reason.
- [47:15]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
That's when Bobby first coined calling me Donna Jean here. I was born in the south and lived here all my life, and I was never called Donna Jean, it was just Donna. You know, you hear the cliche of people down here, Billy Bob and Peggy sue and all of that. I was never called Donna Jean, and Bobby started calling me Donna Jean, and so it's all his fault. That was old days. That was old days. We started that tour in New York, and I remember the second time I was on stage with the Grateful Dead was that. I believe it was. Was it the Academy of Music in New York? Was it with the Hells Angel? It was a benefit.
- [48:12]
Jesse Jarno
It was, in fact, the Hells Angels benefit at the Academy of Music in New York on March 25, 1972. That does sound a little intimidating, to be honest. Not only Donna Jean's New York debut, but in front of a theater packed full of Hell's Angels.
- [48:26]
Keith Godchaux
You know, it should have been if I had the liquor sense in my head, but I didn't, and I was not afraid. And one of the reasons I was not afraid is that the Angels were very respectful of the band and really especially of me. You know, they were told by what the President, you don't mess with. Don't mess with her. And they respected that. And so I never did have any fear. I always felt protected, and they were always very kind to me.
- [49:00]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
And so here I am, this little girl from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. You know, all of a sudden, I'm like, New York with the Grateful Dead on this stage, going to Europe. And it was just. Can you tell I'm at a loss for words. It was unbelievable to be in that place at that time with that band and just getting my feet wet in that kind of a situation to where I'm in front of people, no earphones, no cloistering, no controlled environment, and everything is out of control. And so. And so, rather than, you know, having all of my. My Little comfort zones. I had no comfort zone. And so it was just like being in another world. And I'm not exaggerating there. It was like being in another world.
- [50:03]
Jesse Jarno
You can hear some of Donna's first proper performance with the dead, March 25, 1972, at the Academy of Music in New York. Released on Dix picks 30. They do two songs that the Dead only played once, but which would be part of Jerry Garcia's side repertoire. Burt Burns, are you lonely for me? And the Motown classic How sweet it is.
- [50:40]
Narrator/Singer
To be loved by you.
- [50:53]
Keith Godchaux
You could have cut the energy with a knife, you know, it was just thick. You can talk about energy all day and long, but when you experience it, you know, from one place to the next or one moment to the next, it was heightened, you know, not only because it was New York that the Hells Angels were there. And I think New York probably prepared me for the next nine years of my life. You know, how it was going to be. I loved it. I loved being on the road. I mean, it was hard. And especially when I had my son Zion on the road, it was hard leaving him at home, and it was hard having him on the road, you know, so that. That was a. That was a tricky thing, but we. We pulled it off.
- [51:40]
Jesse Jarno
The 70s would be a whirlwind, just.
- [51:43]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Even that decade itself. I mean, I'm okay to say this was one of the best decades of the Grateful Dead. Like all of these new songs that Garcia was just. And Hunter were writing and Bobby and Barlow were just coming out of the woodwork, like every time we were come to rehearsal. Jerry. Well, I have this new song, and it would be Scarlet Begonias. And hearing Scarlet Begonias for the first time. Or Ro. Jimmy for the first. Or just name any of those songs and hearing them for the first time in rehearsal.
- [52:29]
Narrator/Singer
Gonna get there. I don't know. Seems to come out where to go.
- [52:55]
Jesse Jarno
That early. Billy Row Jimmy was from October 29, 1973, at the Keel Auditorium, part of the Listen to the river box set, which we heard about last episode.
- [53:03]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
And then them having that kind of longevity that the way that the songs are written, the way that Hunter had this special way of putting words together that fit everybody. You could make it your own to where they're pretty much eternal in that the music never stops. And it keeps going on and on through years and decades and decades and decades. And it's a music that I believe that is not going to have its. And it is other. And I think it's going to Outlast a lot of things. Hunter could say something in a lyric that was almost eternal to where it didn't matter what year you're in, what decade you're in, what century you're in, it's still has relevance. And that is totally in the spiritual world. It was not just talent that he had, it was a world that he was in. And it was very, very high. And that's why the Garcia's music and Hunter's lyrics are so high. It is because that's where both of them really were at. It was the real deal, the real deal. That's because they were already there. They were there. They didn't have to reach for it. It was just there. That's where they were at. You know, and I've been asked this a lot, you know, what was the spiritual content of the Grateful Dead? But it was kind of anything goes. But then there are unstated things that are very much in place that relate to the spiritual realm and spiritual world. And I really liked that because, you know, I was raised in the south, where spirituality really wasn't as much as it was religion and a religious view of what spirituality should be. And so I had never known a real spiritual atmosphere before. And I felt like when I started hanging out with those guys in San Francisco, that I was introduced into the real spiritual world for the first time. Even though I'd gone to church for years and years and years, I never had a spiritual experience until I got in that band. And I can't put into words or, you know, some kind of. Or formulate an idea of what that is or even really how to communicate it. All I know is that it was just there. It took me somewhere, took me into another place that was so much bigger and deeper and wider and, you know, all of the good things that happen or should be happening when you are talking about spirituality. And it opened me wide open, and I felt more spiritual then than I ever had in my. In my life. And I still am in that place. It doesn't go away once you're opened up to it. It doesn't really go.
- [57:18]
Jesse Jarno
That was Scarlet Charlotte Begonias from The Download Series, Volume 1, recorded April 30, 1977, at the Palladium in New York, formerly known as the Academy of Music, where Donna Jean had sung for the Hell's Angels with the Dead five years earlier. Garcia was a different kind of singing partner for her.
- [57:34]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I always say that Garcia didn't have a pipe to pee in, but he was a great singer. Just a great singer because he knew how to communicate through that voice that he had. He used every bit of his voice, and it's so distinctive. You know, when you hear Garcia, that. That's Jerry Garcia singing. And I loved his voice. And like I said, it was not that he had pipes, he just had soul and he had realness to his voice. And he was a great singer.
- [58:19]
Jesse Jarno
She worked together easily with Garcia and Weir.
- [58:22]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We just kind of fell into it, like, usually Jerry or Bobby, you know, whose ever song it was, had some idea of what they wanted, like when they wanted the vocals to come in, and then we would just figure out what part sounded right where and just fall into it. And it was relatively easy to do that. And some of the songs aren't that easy. You'd really have to have to find it. They weren't like from the 1 to the 4 to the 5 to the 1, you know, it was the Grateful Dead. Music was very complicated in some ways. In a lot of ways, actually.
- [59:08]
Jesse Jarno
But in the years immediately after Donna joined the Dead, the band also graduated into bigger venues and bigger sound systems. The band had helped pioneer early monitor technology. But there was still a long way to go and a vast chasm between the controlled studio environment and the utter lunatic chaos of a Grateful Dead show in the 1970s.
- [59:27]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
As a singer and singing with the loudest rock and roll band on the planet at that time, I had this little tiny box in front of me, and so 99% of the time, I was just trying to hear myself. And so a lot of times, probably most of the time, my voice doesn't sound like me because I am screaming into the microphone trying to hear myself. And so my natural voice isn't coming through. You know, it was. I was just screaming to try to hear anything, you know, that that's part of the live experience. And a lot of times it's just hard. It's hard when you can't hear. Then you're trying to compensate, and then that throws your natural ability and what you would do naturally to the wind, you know, so it was tough.
- [60:21]
Jesse Jarno
In the mid-70s, alongside Grateful Dead records, there was also Round Records, owned by their Stinson beach neighbors, Jerry Garcia and Ron rackow, who issued LPs by the dead's growing family. Not long after the Dead took a break from the road, the Gotchas turned part of their house in Stinson beach into a recording setup.
- [60:40]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
If you notice, on the Keith and Donna album, it was recorded at let's see, what's It Studio R in studio R R was our living room, which was basically. Which was huge. Number one, it had that grand nine foot Steinway in it. And you know, it was a big living room overlooking Stinson Beach. Oh my gosh, it was fantastic. Oh, man, that Steinway, that thing sounded so good. And I've been spoiled ever since that, that time, you know, with that instrument there in the living room. Just the most beautiful tone on that thing, I'm telling you. Spoiled. Spoiled rotten. But yeah, that's where we did everything. And Zion was a baby and his room was in the back of the house. And so all the recording was done right with, you know, I'm having. I have this baby, you know, right. A few feet down, you know, down the block here. Not down the block, but you know, down the hall.
- [61:49]
Jesse Jarno
Down the hall with Jerry Garcia close by. It was easy enough to get him in on the action too. I love the little Wawa bounce he adds. To sweet baby.
- [62:08]
Narrator/Singer
To my sweetie.
- [62:18]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We really put our minds together to do the Keith and Donna record, but some of the stuff that was on that record was written before we were in the Grateful Dead. But during. Yeah, during the. The time that we were in the band, it was just. There was so much focus in what was before us at the time that that's where we were at and what we did. So the writing really didn't resume until after we decided to do the record.
- [62:58]
Keith Godchaux
Ron Rackow, who was, you know, with the Grateful Dead and Round Records at that time, called it Neo Gospel.
- [63:06]
Jesse Jarno
The album's opening track channeled a different wall of sound covering Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry and Phil Spector's River Deep Mountain High, originally recorded by Tina and ike Turner in 1966. I love hearing Donna harmonize with herself.
- [63:20]
Narrator/Singer
Do I love you My deep mountain high I lost you when I cry well, you know I love you baby baby, baby, baby.
- [63:52]
Jesse Jarno
Garcia did the COVID art drawing on top of a photo of baby Zion God show.
- [63:56]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I just remember having the photo there and Garcia leaning on our kitchen island there, you know, doing those doodles. I remember it very clearly that watching him do that and doodling to all the songs that were on the album. If you notice, what he drew was basically the lyrics to the songs. He was an artist. I mean, what can you say? You know, that's something that came as natural to him, his music.
- [64:30]
Jesse Jarno
After recording the album in the early part of the year, the Keith and Donna Band became a real entity over the course of 1975, playing nearly 70 shows in eight months and even touring The east coast with Bob Weir and Kingfish. We've posted a link to Corey arnold's chronology@dead.net deadcast it was very serious.
- [64:47]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
And Rex Jackson was our road manager. You know, that's how long ago it was and how, you know, intense that we all felt about it. And of course, doing the recording of the Keith and Donna album, we had a lot of Garcia on there, and there were times where he would sit in with us and then Kreutzman as well. So it was a deal, it was a thing. And we played a lot of college gigs and we had a blast doing that. We went through a couple of stages, but it was really fun having Billy Kreutzman play drums. You know, he is just. He's the best. I mean, what are you gonna say? He's the best.
- [65:29]
Jesse Jarno
At the end of 1975, pianist Nicky Hopkins departed the original incarnation of the Jerry Garcia band. And by early 1976, Keith and Donna were in.
- [65:38]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
It was way different than the Dead because, of course, it was a smaller get up. You know, the whole scene was much more concise. And it was not the Grateful Dead yet, it was Garcia. So, you know, you had kind of two different worlds coming together that were just beautifully matched. And Garcia loved playing with John Connor. He and Keith had been playing together in the Grateful Dead and. And me singing as well. And so it was a natural thing for us to be involved in that band. Garcia and Keith and I lived in Stinson beach and we had access to one another all the time. And we were constantly listening to music at our house and figuring out songs, you know, to do, especially the gospel songs. We really. Garcia was really into that. And so we had all these gospel albums and going through them and kind of picking, you know, what would really work well within the Garcia structure. And it was a. It was a ball. I mean, it really was a blast just sitting there listening to those old gospel spirituals and just getting into it. And Garcia was really into that.
- [67:03]
Jesse Jarno
This is from the brand New Garcia Live, Volume 17, NorCal 76. This song is mighty high, a contemporary disco gospel hit by the Mighty Clouds of Joy when the Jerry Garcia band started playing it that year. Vocals by Garcia, Donna and Keith. This is from a mystery date in 1976.
- [67:30]
Narrator/Singer
Take the load off your mind.
- [67:47]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
You know, people think because I was raised in the south that I was into that, but it was not so much because I was raised in a white Baptist church. And so it was very contemporary and boring, I have to say. And so I didn't have access to all the soulful gospel music. So it was a joy to me to get to experience gospel music in that kind of atmosphere where it's just cool instead of stodgy. So I. I loved it. I loved it. Well, I think Jerry had most of the music, and I. I can't remember if Keith and I did or not, to tell you the truth, but I know that Jerry had a lot of that stuff. He just listened to music all the time. It was soulful. It wasn't just the gospel. It was the gospel music and how soulful and spiritual it was. And Jerry was a very spiritual guy. And the Garcia band was more kind of in tune with that specific soulful sound. And so it was just natural to go there, and we went there.
- [69:05]
Jesse Jarno
Garcia and Donna got some of their best vocal blend in the smaller rooms where the Jerry Garcia Band played. This is Catfish John from Garcia Live, Volume 17, recorded November 12, 1976 at UC Davis and officially released 45 years later. To the day.
- [69:30]
Narrator/Singer
Don't be hanging around o cappucht Come the morning I always be there Walking Mary's footsteps In the sweet delved dome.
- [69:57]
Jesse Jarno
Donna Jean's songwriting continued to the first Grateful Ed studio album after their road hiatus, 1977's Terrapin Station.
- [70:04]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
All of my songwriting has been on the piano, but I remember when we were thinking about making the album, which turned out to be Terrapin Station, and Jerry actually came to me and said, why don't you write a song for it for this album? You know, with his encouragement and almost like a directive, I want you to write something for the album. I really put everything into it and wrote Sunrise, of course, on the piano and played it for the guys. And we started working on it and recorded it.
- [70:59]
Narrator/Singer
Real life, on our forehead.
- [71:08]
Jesse Jarno
That was from June 8, 1977. The Middle Night of Winterland, June 1977. The complete recordings.
- [71:14]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
So Jerry was very instrumental in, you know, putting me in the situation of, you're a songwriter now for this album. So it was a good time for it, and it was a good time for me. And it was also such a departure from traditional Grateful Dead sound, was just something that was different and something that was real and something that was not only creative, but it's very deep. If you listen to the lyrics to Sunrise, it's very, very literal in that it's about Rolling Thunder, the Indian medicine man that we were very much in contact with the whole time I was in the band. And it's Sunrise Services that he did with us in different situations. He was the real deal. I mean, this guy was not faux. He was the real deal. He was a real shaman. And everything is very literal in it about what this. What went on in the sunrise service. I mean, he could literally make the birds stop and make everything go quiet by just moving a feather around. I mean, it was just wild.
- [72:41]
Jesse Jarno
Well, there's nothing else in the Dead's catalog that sounds like sunrise. I also think it not only contributes to the mystic mood of Terrapin Station, but likewise puts Donna into the cosmic canon of the Dead's lyricists.
- [72:53]
Narrator/Singer
Beholds the drums Bowens Rising suns We are singing and praying what is sa.
- [73:25]
Jesse Jarno
When the band was touring behind Terrapin Station, Donna had a chance to return to one of her childhood hometowns.
- [73:31]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
When I was in the fifth grade, I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and there was Godshaw and there was God Shaw, Sugar and God. You know, that was big down here. They called it God Shaw in the south instead of Godshaw. You know, we always had the French pronunciation.
- [73:49]
Jesse Jarno
In 1977, the Grateful Dead returned to Louisiana for the first time since their bust on Bourbon street in 1970.
- [73:56]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We were playing in Baton Rouge, the Grateful Dead were playing in Baton Rouge. And Keith and I took the limo and I said, I want to go see where my house was and just see if it's still there. And, you know, what was there was in place of my house where I lived in the fifth grade in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was now God Show's department store. I couldn't believe it.
- [74:26]
Jesse Jarno
One of her bandmates in the late seventies Jerry Garcia Band was drummer Ronnie Tuttle, who very sadly passed away this autumn. About a year after the session for Suspicious Minds, Ron Tutte took over the drum seat in Elvis's TCB band. And for a few years between 1974 and 1977, Tutt juggled gigs between Elvis and Jerry Garcia. Despite their shared connection to Elvis, Donna and Ron didn't talk about it too much.
- [74:51]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We rarely went there, but then sometimes we would. And sometimes I would say, well, how's the Elvis? And he would talk to me about, you know, what was going on with Elvis at the time. But that. That was a rare thing. But one thing that was really unique about that is we were. I believe we were doing Cats under the Stars. And we were in the studio and. And I said, tut. I called him Tut. I said, I don't know why I'm asking you this for right now, but the next time you see Elvis, would you tell him I said, hello? And he said, yeah, I'LL do that. And a few days later, Tut had to leave to go play with Elvis and. And I ended up in the hospital and had to have kind of an emergency surgery kind of thing. And I was waking up from that surgical procedure in the hospital and I get a phone call from Ron Tut. And he said, donna, I have to tell you that Elvis died. And of course I was horrified. And he said, and I saw him and I told him what you said, and he said, oh, yeah, tell her I remember her and I hope to get to see her again someday. How weird is that?
- [76:29]
Jesse Jarno
Pretty weird. The world of music that Donna Jean Gotcho came from originally was not only very different from the Grateful Dead, it remained a parallel universe, as she Learned in early 1979.
- [76:40]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We were playing Madison Square Garden, and I was getting out of my limo in wherever the parking lot was, and Jerry Wexler was coming out of his limo. And I said, Jerry. And he goes, Donna. And he said, fancy meeting you here. And I said, well, I sang with this band. And he said, that's you. And so Jerry and I had this new greeting together, you know, meeting and a greeting together from. Because I hadn't seen him since the Muscle Shoals days and he didn't know that it was Donna Thatcher that was Donna Gottscho. And so it was a real fun thing to meet Jerry Wexler in that context.
- [77:28]
Jesse Jarno
Not too long thereafter, Donna Jean and Keith God show departed the Grateful Dead.
- [77:33]
Narrator/Singer
I bid you good night good night, good night.
- [77:41]
Jesse Jarno
And I bid you good.
- [77:42]
Narrator/Singer
Night Good night.
- [77:56]
Jesse Jarno
That was from the very first moment of 1979 and the last moments of the closing of Winterland. Things had gotten bad for Keith and Donna by then. At the end of February, they left the band righted their course and set to work on their own music. They performed occasionally with a group called the Ghosts.
- [78:13]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Keith and I were just got into that situation just to play on a record. We had no intention of being the Ghosts or anything. That was not our band at all.
- [78:28]
Jesse Jarno
The band did a short tour, alternating sets, and occasionally crossing over with Robert Hunter. If you ask your taper friends, there are some recordings of Donna Jean singing with Robert Hunter from early 1980. That's pretty cool to hear. But though Keith and Donna had very much needed to get out of the Dead, they remained part of the extended family using the Front street studio and more.
- [78:47]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We weren't say at that point that like in the middle of the circle, but we weren't estranged either. It was not that kind of thing. But what we were into was the Heart of Gold Band. And that's where we met Steve Cammock. And Steve and I remain great friends to this day. I just love him. That was a real wonderful experience.
- [79:18]
Narrator/Singer
One more, no matter what.
- [79:42]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
Here's two geniuses playing together. You know, they were both extraordinary musicians and playing together was just. It was an incredible thing. It was short lived, but really powerful at the time. That's before Keith died that we started that band and then we carried on after Keith passed. But it was a really unique, wonderful experience as well. Just being in a situation that was not in the Grateful Dead, but still of it in a way.
- [80:43]
Jesse Jarno
After Keith's tragic death in a car accident in the summer of 1980, the heart of Gold Band carried on in various incarnations. Donna Jean remarried in the 80s to bassist David McKay and they've continued the Heart of Gold Band and other projects since the 90s. Donna Jean Gotcha. McKay has been recording and performing again. And last year she actually put out a timely single co written with guitarist Jeff Matson of the Dark Star Orchestra.
- [81:09]
Narrator/Singer
They say people beware Hasten to a shelter from the storm again I feel it in my bones again See to be inside Changes in the earth and in the air Signs are everywhere.
- [81:38]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
We just hit it off, you know, personality wise and everything else together. And Jeff and I really took it to the next level and we started writing songs together. And so eventually it morphed into Donna Jean and the Trix. And then we did record our cd. I keep wanting to say album, but it's still album to me. Anyway, we recorded that In, I think 2007, I'm not mistaken. And Jeff and I had written this song called Shelter, which was on the album. And it was. Came out beautifully. I mean, it was really nicely done. But there were a couple of things that Jeff and I really thought that didn't really hit the mark that we had envisioned in writing the song. And so when the pandemic came, of course we had the time and space to do that at the time. It was very heavy. And when I saw what was going on today, I thought, gosh, that song is even more relevant today than it was when I wrote it. We went into the studio, took the hard drive, and I got the three girls who are the main vocalists here when things are recorded in Muscle Shoals. And I had them redo the background vocals and they were so strong and so good and so different. It just took the. The song way up into another place.
- [83:32]
Narrator/Singer
Shelter from the fear, you know, Shelter from the soul Shelter from the Hate.
- [83:51]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I didn't expect any fanfare or money or anything like that. It had to do with just being out there for people to hear because it was so relevant to what was going on in our world and what we're facing today.
- [84:08]
Jesse Jarno
We've posted a link to the Muscle shoals remix@dead.net Deadcast for nearly 50 years, Donna Jean's life has been entwined with the Grateful Dead, whether as an active member or not. She was also a Deadhead, and she got to see the band one more time after leaving.
- [84:24]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I saw them in 95 in Birmingham after my husband David and I had moved here. And that was the. Yeah, I hadn't seen them in quite a while, and then I saw them at that show in Birmingham and I was kind of amazed at how everything had changed. They all had their little earphones in and they all had their different mixes that they could kind of mix each other either in or out. You know, it was a whole different vibe than when I was in the band. So I was kind of amazed at how things had changed so dramatically. And then the next morning, Jerry called and asked did we want to come up and have breakfast with him, which we did. And this was in April, before he passed, in August, I believe it was April. And so I got to visit with Jerry, and it was just the most wonderful, pleasant, just heart to heart time with him. And he was feeling good, he looked good, and I was just heartbroken to find out that after that, things just really went downhill so fast for him. But we had the best time together. We talked about things that nobody else knew that we had, he and I had experienced together and that we both still remembered and laughed about. And we just had the best time. And I will never forget, you know, having that special time with him. It was just once again, very magical in that I got to spend that kind of time, that kind and quality of time with Jerry before he passed. So I'm very grateful for that.
- [86:21]
Jesse Jarno
A few years after that, she joined the other ones in 1998 for her performance, and since then has performed on occasion with the other former members of the Grateful Dead, most recently in 2016. Donna Jean joined Dead & Co. At five shows that June. One at Bonnaroo, two at Citi Field in New York, and two at Fenway park in Boston. I was at one of the Boston shows, and as a younger Dead freak who never saw Donna Jean sing with the band in the 70s, it was really one of the more powerful musical experiences of my life to hear her next to Bob Weir in the vocal mix. One more time.
- [87:20]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
It was just a treat, needless to say, to, you know, be on stage with Bobby and Mickey and Billy again and then Ottil and Jeff and John. It was not like going back, but it was like. Like back to the future or something. I don't know where to put that in words, but it sure was fun. And it came together very quickly. It was not only fun, it was time to get back with those guys. And, you know, on stage, I've been with them separately in different situations. Like we would be doing a tour with Donna Jean and the Tricksters or the Donna Jean God Show Band or whatever, and Mickey's band would be playing or Billy would be playing with somebody. And, you know, so I saw them intermittently in different situations, but never at the same time on stage together. So it was a great, great time for me and I hope for them. And the audience seemed to really like it, so I'm glad it happened.
- [88:34]
Jesse Jarno
Us too. Thanks, Donna Jean.
- [88:36]
Donna Jean Godchaux McKay
I was just fortunate enough to live in a place where all of these studios and all these musical people were together in this little podunk northwest corner of Alabama. How often does that happen? And people ask me all the time, well, how did that happen? And you just go, well, stars fell on Alabama or something, I don't know. But it was one of those magical times. Like the whole San Francisco thing happening was just magical. And it was there at that time with that music and. And it was the same here, only it was across the United States in a whole different world. But nevertheless, it was two magical things, musically that was going on in America at the same time, pretty much. And I got to be a part of both of those things is what still blows my mind to this day. That I got to be involved in such iconic musical expressions and experiments and these magical things going on that I consider myself one of the most fortunate people in the world. I really have gotten to do everything that I wanted to do, to tell you the truth.
- [90:25]
Rich Mahan
Many thanks to Donna Jean, who was so very generous with her time. You can check out Donna Jean's latest single that she recorded with Jeff Matson from Dark Star Orchestra, entitled Shelter the Muscle Shoals Remix at your favorite streaming provider. Take care out there. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. Executive producers for the good old Grateful Dead cast, Mark Pincus and Doran Tyson, produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Productions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux. All rights reserved.