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donna jean godchaux 1947-2025

the grateful dead family lost another one yesterday, as donna lost a long battle with cancer in nashville. she was one of the vocalists in the band during some of their peak times. her husband keith joined the band in late 1971, and she started singing with them right before their famous european tour in 1972. so her tenure included that tour, their high musical peak of 1973 (in my opinion), the wall of sound year of 1974, the monster year of 1977 and then early 1978. donna and keith both got caught up in the hard core living on the road, and by late 1978 the wheels started to come off. they left by mutual decision with the band in very early 1979.

she got her start in the music business as an in demand session singer in muscle shoals, alabama. during the sixties she sang on many well known records with famous artists. she contributed to percy sledge’s ‘when a man loves a woman’ as well as elvis’ ‘ suspicious minds’ and ‘in the ghetto’. other artists she worked for included duane allman, cher, neil diamond, and boz scaggs.

in 1970 her and keith headed out west and settled in california, specifically san francisco. they became fans of the dead after seeing them a few times. the story goes that they went to see a jerry garcia band show as well, where she approached jerry and said “this is your new keyboardist” (current keyboardist pigpen’s health had been failing). jerry seemed intrigued and gave her his number. soon he gave keith tapes of recent shows for him to take home so he could learn them for an eventual tryout. and the rest is history.

after leaving the grateful dead her and keith released an album together, and were making more plans when keith died in a car accident in 1980. she remarried and kept her musical career going well into her sixties with various bands and guest appearances on various side projects with members of the grateful dead.

there are those who felt that her vocal style in live shows sometimes went off the rails (and i don’t necessarily disagree with that notion). but my take is that she was essentially a studio musician whose pipes were not really meant for loud live music. she had to compete with a band that had a propensity to ratchet it up, and her range wasn’t really suited for that.

but overall i think she did great duets with bobby and especially jerry. if you want to hear her at her best with them, i would have you go and listen to the shows they did in the summer of 1976, after they came off their nearly two year hiatus. her voice sounds fresh and comfortable with the surroundings.

as her representative and the dead’s long time publicist said in the family’s announcement today,

‘may the four winds blow her safely home’.

charlie

the world lost one of the great rock and roll drummers today. he was also one of my favorite drummers as well. in the world of rock drummers, there are at least two categories. there are the showy and bombastic power drummers, epitomized by the likes of john bonham, ginger baker, keith moon and so on. and then there is the type that are known for their innate sense of time – their ability to lay the rhythmic foundation of the song down to such a degree that the other band members always knew where to land. ringo starr and levon helm come to mind, but so do so many others. in fact there are more drummers in the latter category, primarily for two reasons. the first corresponds to the fact that it does not require a lot of skill to be a more traditional small kit drummer. but the more important reason is that the primary job of the drummer is to keep the beat. if you can do that, most bands will find value in your musicianship.

i bring this all up of course because charlie watts, who died today at the age of 80, was one of the icons of the latter camp above. he was the bedrock of the rolling stones’ rhythm section for the last 58 years, keeping time for arguably one of the best rock and roll bands ever. the accolades have come pouring in all day, and most reference his rock solid drumming, but also his elegance and warmth as an individual.

i tried to find some good videos to accompany this post, showing charlie’s drumming prowess, but nearly everything featured the ‘stars’ of the band – keith and mick. charlie could always be seen in the background pounding away at his small four or five piece kit, but never being focused on. and he probably always preferred it that way. he didn’t really like the rock and roll lifestyle, especially being out on the road, but he did love to play.

although charlie was not in the press like his more flamboyant bandmates, there is no question that he commanded the respect of them. all members are on record for giving immense praise to his contribution to their overall sound and live performances. keith richards has been quoted often saying that ‘charlie’s drumming is the bed i lay in’.

there is a great story about a time when they were on tour, and mick called his hotel room late at night after a big party session, and yelled ‘where’s my drummer?’. charlie hung up, got out of bed and shaved, put on a suit and tie, then went down to the party room and punched jagger in the face, saying ‘don’t ever call me your drummer again. you are my f**cking singer’. mick apologized. he knew his place.

rest in peace, charlie.

toots hibbert, 1942-2020

let me tell you a little story. in the early eighties i was in college and my musical horizons were exploding. in the summer between my junior and senior year i was getting heavy into reggae, and as usual, once i lock into something i go in deep. i was starting to build a little catalog of not only the biggest names – marley, tosh, jimmy cliff and the like – but also newer acts like black uhuru and steel pulse. and, of course, i had a great little album called ‘funky kingston’ by toots and the maytals.

so i felt well prepared when a few guys from my fraternity decided to head down to jamaica for our senior spring break excursion. we had our little boom box and i brought my tape case that probably had room for 12-15 of my best reggae tapes. after an arduous flight into montego bay, we had about a two hour taxi ride to our campsite in negril. we found a guy willing to take us there, and he helped us secure a case of barely cold red stripe beer. as we started making our way through the countryside, i asked him if i could play one of my tapes for the ride. he said yes, and so i started rattling off some of the names above, until i got to toots. all of he sudden he turned and said ‘toots, mon, play the toots, mon’. and so i did.

and so a few white kids from the midwest got our first taste of the jamaican back country as our driver careened through those roads, listening to ‘funky kingston’, occasionally seeing the western caribbean coastline as we headed to the small town of negril.

it was my first realization that there is reggae that we were exposed to in the states, and then there was the music that was popular on the island itself. and there is really no one who is more loved and respected on that island than toots hibbert. he had 31 number one singles there. there are some that say he first coined the term reggae, with his 1968 song ‘do the reggay’.

besides being one of the founders of the genre, he was also arguably it’s most soulful singer, often compared to otis redding. and by most accounts that i have seen, he was also a very kind and generous soul who always called jamaica home. he had a long and prosperous career, and i last saw him at jazzfest two years ago. he still had it going on at the age of 75.

‘reggae got soul’. yes it does, and toots was the best.

if you want a little something to get an idea of the influence he had here in the states, i would recommend a tribute album to him done in 2004 called ‘true love’, where the likes of clapton, bonnie raitt, keith richards, and so many others played with him on his biggest hits. it is really a fantastic compilation.

there was also a documentary on his life put out recently by the bbc that was really well done.

rest in peace, my friend.

bill and brint, this one’s for you.

justin townes earle, 1978-2020

we lost one of my favorite singer songwriters over the weekend. i think the first album i ever got of his was 2010’s ‘harlem river blues’, and i have been hooked ever since. unfortunately i never got to see him live. some say that in order to be a good blues singer you have to live the blues. i don’t necessarily believe that, but it could possibly be true of justin. he certainly led a troubled life, and we may eventually find out that it led to his early demise. i hope that turns out not to be true. regardless, he was a great story teller, and he attached all types of musical styles to that prose – blues, swing, country, folk, you name it. i have pretty much everything he ever released, and they were always well done and enduring. he grew up in his father’s shadow, but, as i have said here before, i think he is a better songwriter than the old man. if you are not familiar with his work, i think last year’s release, ‘saint of lost causes’ was some of his best, but the aforementioned ‘harlem river blues’ is also a good launching point.

just another bullet point to add to this already shitty year. he was such a huge talent. it is a tremendous loss to his family and the musical community. the family suggested on his instagram post that we listen to his ‘looking for a place to land’ today, in his memory.

yes, this is jason isbell playing in his band on the letterman show:

‘troubled days are behind me now and i know they’re gonna let me in’

r.i.p., john prine

‘he was in heaven before he died’

today the music world is mourning the loss of one of my favorite songwriters of all time, john prine. even though i was aware that he had been hospitalized nearly two weeks ago with this dreaded virus and that the outlook was not good, i was still stunned when word came down last night that he didn’t make it. i have heard it said a number of times in the last two weeks that there are two kinds of people: those that love john prine, and those that have never heard of him. all you need to do is type his name on your web browser today, and you will see how many people are in the ‘love’ group. the outpouring of emotions and tributes in the musical world today is amazing, and mr. redeyegin’s eyes have been welling up with moisture all day. you can see the amount of respect and admiration that the musicians have for not only his songs and career, but maybe more importantly, the man himself. one of my favorite mantras in life is to try and give more than you receive, and this was certainly true of john – at least until the last two weeks when it all came back to him.

i am not going to go into the details of the aspects of his career here, as you can go back to that web browser and finds dozens of articles spilling ink on his nearly 50 year career. i just want to share a few thoughts on him personally, and drop a few nuggets i read about him recently.

i cannot remember who turned me on to him, but i do know that my first album i bought was ‘ the missing years’, and my friend mike t. and i listened to it relentlessly all that summer of ’91. ‘great days’ came out in 1993, which was a compilation of his work up to that point, and i was hooked (if you fall into that category above of those who have never heard of john, that is a good place to start). i own nearly his whole catalog, and i can tell you that there really aren’t any bad prine songs. there actually aren’t very many mediocre ones. his writing style was unique. dylan considers him one of his favorite writers and once said ‘prine’s style is pure proustian existentialism, midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree’. if what he was trying to say was that his writings were simple and profound at the same time, then i agree. the first three songs he performed in front of a live audience were ‘sam stone’, ‘hello in there’, and ‘paradise’. most artists would be happy to have written those three masterpieces in their entire career, but john was just getting started. the redeyegin studio has numerous playlists built to suit my various moods, and i can tell you that much of his catalog dominates those playlists and get heavy play to this day.

the last song on his last album (2018’s ‘tree of forgiveness’) was titled ‘when i get to heaven’. he writes that when he gets there he’s ‘gonna have a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale’. well, i stopped at the liquor store on the way home. going out to the porch now with ‘great days’ on random play and two cocktails in hand. one for me, and one for john.