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Keith Godchaux | |
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 Godchaux in 1972 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Keith Richard Godchaux (1948-07-19)July 19, 1948 |
| Origin | San Francisco, California, US |
| Died | July 23, 1980(1980-07-23) (aged 32) |
| Genres | Rock,psychedelia,rhythm and blues,blues,boogie woogie |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
| Instrument | Keyboards |
| Years active | 1971–1980 |
| Formerly of | Grateful Dead,Jerry Garcia Band,Heart of Gold Band |
Keith Richard Godchaux (July 19, 1948 – July 23, 1980) was an Americanpianist best known for his tenure in therock group theGrateful Dead from 1971 to 1979. Following their departure from the Dead, he and his wifeDonna formed theHeart of Gold Band in 1980, but Godchaux died from injuries sustained in a car accident shortly after their first concert.
Godchaux was born inSeattle, Washington, and grew up inConcord, California, a regional suburban center within theEast Bay of theSan Francisco Bay Area. He began piano lessons at age five at the instigation of his father (a semi-professional musician) and subsequently playedDixieland and cocktail jazz in professional ensembles as a teenager. According to Godchaux, "I spent two years wearing dinner jackets and playing acoustic piano incountry club bands and Dixieland groups...I also did piano bar gigs and put trios together to back singers in various places around the Bay Area...[playing] cocktail standards like 'Misty' the way jazz musicians resentfully play a song that's popular – that frustrated space... I just wasn't into it... I was looking for something real to get involved with – which wouldn't necessarily be music".[1] He met and married formerFAME Studios session vocalistDonna Jean Thatcher in November 1970; their son Zion, of the bandBoomBox, was born in 1974.
The couple introduced themselves toJerry Garcia at a concert in August 1971; coincidentally, ailing keyboardist/vocalistRon "Pigpen" McKernan (who would go on to play alongside Godchaux from December 1971 to June 1972) was unable to handle the rigors of the band's next tour. At the time, Godchaux was largely supported by his wife and irregularly employed as a lounge pianist inWalnut Creek, California. While he was largely uninterested in the popular music of the era and eschewed au courantjazz rock in favor ofmodal jazz,bebop, andswing, several sources[who?] claim that he collaborated with such rock acts asDave Mason andJames and the Good Brothers, a Canadian trio acquainted with the Grateful Dead.
According to Godchaux, "I first saw [the Grateful Dead] play with a bunch of my old lady's friends, who were real Grateful Dead freaks. I went to a concert with them and saw something I didn't know could be really happening... It was not like a mind-blowing far out, just a beautiful far out. Not exactly a choir of angels but some incredibly holy, pure and beautiful spiritual light. From then on, I was super turned-on that such a thing existed. This was about a year and a half ago, when I first met Donna... I knew I was related to them."[2][1] He was also known toBetty Cantor-Jackson, a Grateful Deadsound engineer, who produced James and the Good Brothers' debut album in 1970.
Remembering their initial meeting, drummerBill Kreutzmann writes, "Then, around the same time that Pigpen entered the hospital, Jerry gave me a call telling me to get my ass down to the rehearsal space. He said there was a guy down there with him that I simply had to hear. Nobody else from the band was around, but almost immediately after I arrived, I knew that Jerry was right—this guy could really play piano."[3]
Although the band had employed several other keyboardists (includingHoward Wales,Merl Saunders andNed Lagin) as session musicians to augment McKernan's limited instrumental contributions following the departure ofTom Constanten in January 1970, Godchaux was invited to join the group as a permanent member in September 1971. He first performed publicly with the Dead on October 19, 1971, at theUniversity of Minnesota'sNorthrup Auditorium.
After playing anupright piano and increasingly sporadicHammond organ on the fall 1971 tour, Godchaux primarily played acousticgrand piano (including nine-footYamaha andSteinway instruments) at concerts from 1972 to 1974. Throughout this period, Godchaux's rented pianos were outfitted with a state-of-the-art pickup system designed byCarl Countryman. According to sound engineerOwsley Stanley, "The Countryman pickup worked by an electrostatic principle similar to the way acondenser mic works. It was charged with a very high voltage, and thus was very cantankerous to set up and use. It had a way of crackling in humid conditions and making other rather unmusical sounds if not set up just right, but when it worked it was truly brilliant." The control box also enabled Godchaux to use awah-wah pedal with the instrument.[4] He added aFender Rhodeselectric piano in mid-1973 and briefly experimented with the Hammond organ again on the band's fall 1973 tour; the Rhodes piano would remain in his setup through 1976. Following the group's extended touring hiatus, he continued to use contractually-stipulated nine-foot Steinways furnished by the band's venues[5] in 1976 and early 1977 before switching exclusively to theYamaha CP-70electric grand piano in September 1977. The instrument's unwieldy tuning partially contributed to the shelving of the band's recordings of their 1978 engagement at theGiza Plateau for aplanned live album.
Initially, Godchaux incorporated a richly melodic, fluid andboogie-woogie-influenced style that intuitively complemented the band'simprovisational approach to rock music; criticRobert Christgau characterized his playing as "a cross betweenChick Corea andLittle Richard."[6] According to Garcia in a 1980 interview with Mark Rowland conducted shortly before Godchaux's death, "Keith is one of those guys who is sort of anidiot savant of the piano. He’s an excellent pianist but he didn’t really have a concept of music, of how the piano fit in with the rest of the band. We were constantly playing records for him and so forth but that wasn’t his gift. His gift was the keyboard, the piano itself."[7] BassistPhil Lesh lauded his ability to "fit perfectly in the spaces between [our] parts," while Bill Kreutzmann was inspired by his "heart of music."[1]
Increasingly frayed from the vicissitudes of the rock and roll lifestyle, Godchaux gradually became dependent upon various drugs, most notablyalcohol andheroin. Throughout the late 1970s, he was frequently embroiled in violent domestic conflicts with Donna, who also developed analcohol use disorder. Following the Grateful Dead's 1975 hiatus, he largely yielded to a simplercomping-based approach with the group that eschewed his previously contrapuntal style in favor of emulating or ballasting Garcia's guitar parts. Despite occasional flirtations with synthesizers (most notably aPolymoog during the group's spring 1977 tour), this tendency was foregrounded by the reintegration of second drummerMickey Hart, resulting in a heavily percussive sound with littlesustain beyond Garcia's leads. However, Godchaux's playing in theJerry Garcia Band – which had fewer instrumentalists and hence a more "open" sound – retained more elements of his earlier work with the Grateful Dead during this period.
In early 1978, rhythm guitaristBob Weir began to performslide guitar parts with an eye toward variegating the group's sound palette, with Weir concluding that "desperation is the mother of invention."[8] Garcia biographer Blair Jackson has also asserted that "the quality of Keith’s playing in the Dead fell off in ’78 and early ’79. It no longer had that sparkle and imagination that marked his best work (’72–’74). Much of what he played in his last year was basic, blocky, chordal stuff. I don’t hear many wrong notes but he’s not exactly out there on the edge taking chances and pushing the others, as he frequently did, in his own quiet way, in his peak Grateful Dead years. I guess the worst thing you could say about later-period Keith is that he was just taking up sonic space in the Dead’s overall sound. Did this affect the others? No doubt, though it can’t be measured."[9]
Eventually, according to Donna Jean Godchaux, "Keith and I decided we wanted to get out and start our own group or something else – anything else. So we played that benefit concert at Oakland [2/17/79] and then a few days later there was a meeting at our house and it was brought up whether we should stay in the band anymore...and we mutually decided we'd leave."[10] Keyboardist/vocalistBrent Mydland (who shared Godchaux's suburban East Bay background) had been groomed as their replacement for nearly a year in the Bob Weir Band and made his Grateful Dead debut atSan Jose State University'sSpartan Stadium on April 22, 1979.
During his tenure with the Dead, his only lead vocal and wholly original composition was "Let Me Sing Your Blues Away," a collaboration with lyricistRobert Hunter released onWake of the Flood (1973). It was also released as a single, and was performed live six times, all in 1973. He also contributed to two group compositions onBlues for Allah (1975). Keith and Donna Godchaux issued the mostly self-writtenKeith & Donna album in 1975 with a core band including Garcia,Spooky Tooth bassist Chrissy Stewart andWings drummerDenny Seiwell. The album was recorded at their home inStinson Beach, California, where they lived in the 1970s.[11] A touring iteration of the Keith & Donna Band with Kreutzmann on drums and formerQuicksilver Messenger Service equipment manager Stephen Schuster onsaxophone frequently opened for Grateful Dead–related groups in 1975, allowing Garcia to sit in on several occasions.[12] Following the dissolution of this ensemble, the Godchauxs performed as part of the Jerry Garcia Band from 1976 to 1978. "Six Feet of Snow", a collaboration withLowell George ofLittle Feat, was featured on the latter group'sDown on the Farm (1979); George had recently produced the Grateful Dead'sShakedown Street (1978).
Following their departure from the Grateful Dead, the Godchauxs enjoyed an extended period of recuperation with their family in Alabama. He maintained a presence in the band's extended orbit, returning intermittently to California to perform alongside Kreutzmann in the Healy-Treece Band (a venture forDan Healy, the band's longtime live audio engineer) and on at least one occasion with Hunter.[13] He also formed The Ghosts (later rechristenedThe Heart of Gold Band) with his wife; this Bay Area-based aggregation eventually came to include a youngSteve Kimock on guitar.
Godchaux sustained massive head injuries in an auto accident while being driven home on his birthday by notedtie-dye artist Courtenay Pollock (who was hosting the Godchauxs at his home inSan Geronimo, California as they worked with their new band) in July 1980. Shortly before the accident, he professed to Pollock that he was "the happiest I've ever felt in my life."[14] He died at the age of 32 on July 23, 1980, four days after his birthday.[15]
In 1994, he was inducted, posthumously, into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead.
Through his marriage to Donna, Godchaux had a son, Zion.[16] In the years following Godchaux's death, Zion would become a musician like both of his parents.[16]
According to Phil Lesh, some fans consider the years that Keith joined through the touring hiatus in 1974 to be the best years of the Grateful Dead. In his book he writes, "Keith turned into a fire-breathing demon about halfway through the fall [1971] tour—not only following the band effortlessly through all our endlessly bifurcating highways and byways, but grabbing the ball and running with it, leading us into unknown regions and setting the stage for what many heads consider the peak years of the Grateful Dead. With Keith, we became the turbocharged turn-on-a-dime Grateful Dead that had only been hinted at before, but the music also became warmer and more organic, almost but not quite filling the hole Pig's absence had left."[17] Lesh has further clarified that, to him, the band was "never quite the same" after coming back from their touring hiatus in 1975.[18]
Bill Kreutzmann writes about Keith, "He was one of the best, if not the best, keyboardist that I’ve had the honor of playing with. The Grateful Dead have played with some really good ones over the years, likeBruce Hornsby and Brent Mydland, but this guy was just outrageous. He was really competent too, in that he could pick up whatever Jerry and I started playing that day, and just run with it. He didn’t need to know the material first. He could learn songs before he was even done hearing them for the first time. And he could play just about anything."[3]
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