Singer Donna Jean Godchaux MacKay has contributed to work by an incredible array of acts. Originally from Alabama, she launched her career at a young age, serving as a session singer with Muscle Shoals Studios and Fame Studios. She performed on singles by Elvis Presley, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, and Percy Sledge, among many others, and she sang for The Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band in the '70s. Hear Donna Jean and the Tricksters perform a concert from WXPN and World Café Live in Philadelphia.
After leaving The Grateful Dead, she and her husband Keith Godchaux created the band Heart of Gold, which continued into the 1990s. In 2006, she joined up with six other musicians she'd met during a benefit concert for the Dead's Rex Foundation. The Tricksters, originally the Zen Tricksters, originated in Long Island in the '80s, becoming one of the most fondly regarded Dead-oriented bands around. Since joining forces, Donna Jean and the Tricksters recorded a self-titled debut album, which came out late last month.
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