Vocalist with the Grateful Dead between 1971 and 1979.

Godchaux started out as a session singer in Muscle Shoals, AL, then moved on to Memphis and Nashville and then finally to the West Coast. She worked with a group of backup singers who called themselves Southern Comfort and is credited as Donna Thatcher on albums by Cher and Elvis Presley.

Her involvement with the Dead started after she encouraged her husband, Keith Godchaux, to join the band after seeing them at a West Coast gig. At that time, the Dead were in need of a new keyboard player (Pig Pen was very ill). Soon after, Donna was also asked to join as an added vocalist.

She spent 7 years, from 1972 to 1979, singing with the Dead and also as backup for the Jerry Garcia Band. Donna and Keith put out a self-titled album in 1975 with Garcia on guitar.

After becoming weary of the constant touring, the two left the band in 1979. A year later, Keith died in a car accident.

Donna has since married Bay Area musician David MacKay, who founded the Tazmanian Devils. Since the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Donna and some of the remaining members have occasionally got together to play in one form or another, but nothing official. In the late 1990s, she formed the Donna Jean Band with her son, Zion.