Every Grateful Dead song with Donna Jean Godchaux on lead vocals
In August 1971, Pigpen was given doctors orders not to come anywhere near a stage or a tour bus, and the Grateful Dead were suddenly without their wildcard. Lucky, then, that they happened upon keyboard player Keith Godchaux, who was introduced to Jerry Garcia by his wife and avid Deadhead Donna Jean the following month. Yet it would be Donna Godchaux herself who’d become the band’s new secret weapon.
While Keith Godchaux was from the West Coast of the United States like other members of the Dead, his wife was from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the heart of the Deep South, from which the band drew so much inspiration. Her strong southern accent and mezzo-soprano voice allowed them to experiment with out-and-out country music for the first time.
On March 25th, 1972, she was ready to make her debut at the front of the stage. “The audience, who had never heard a female sing with the Grateful Dead, I just thought: are they gonna absolutely hate me?” she recounted on the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast. But when she stepped up to the mic, following some polite applause at her introduction, the New York crowd responded with an emphatic endorsement of the Dead’s newest member.
A few gigs later, Godchaux sang her first lead vocal on the country song ‘Tomorrow Is Forever’, written by Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, which later appeared on the Dead’s live compilation album 30 Trips Around the Sun: The Definitive Live Story, as well as The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack. The next year, she became the band’s star turn, singing the Loretta Lynn classic ‘You Ain’t Woman Enough’ throughout much of their US tour, which ended up on the live LPs Pacific Northwest ’73–’74: Believe It If You Need It and Here Comes Sunshine 1973.
Did she only perform live covers, then?
Later in the decade, Godchaux became more than just a backing vocalist who occasionally took the lead on stage. She penned two compositions of her own, which she sang for the Grateful Dead studio albums Terrapin Station and Shakedown Street. It was Garcia who first asked her, “Why don’t you write a song for this album?” in 1976.
Godchaux obliged, writing ‘Sunrise’ about a Native American medicine man she visited throughout the ‘70s. The power ballad is a considerable departure from the Dead’s typical recording output and still divides fans to this day. But Godchaux’s accomplished vocal performance can’t be faulted on its own terms.
A year later, she wrote ‘From the Heart of Me’, which fitted much more easily into a Grateful Dead setlist and was performed live numerous times. The song is probably Godchaux’s most significant contribution to the group, showcasing the raw power of her voice against a typically multi-layered instrumental backdrop.
It would also prove to be the last song she sang for the Dead. She and her husband were asked to leave the group in 1979 because their escalating marital problems and increasingly unruly drug abuse were disrupting the band’s recording and touring commitments. It was a decision that saved the Godchaux marriage but cost Deadheads their only experience of a female vocalist fronting the band they loved.
Grateful Dead songs with Donna Godchaux on lead vocals:
- ‘Tomorrow Is Forever’ – Live cover (1972)
- ‘You Ain’t Woman Enough’ – Live cover (1973)
- ‘Sunrise’ – Terrapin Station (1977)
- ‘From the Heart of Me’ – Shakedown Street (1978)
