|
|
|
Written by Dan England
|
|
Wednesday, 19 September 2007 |
|
|
|
|
 Donna Jean would listen to Grateful Dead records, and instead of having a strong desire to name an ice cream after them, she would just shake her head.
She didn’t get what all the fuss was about.
“I didn’t even know what jamming was,” Jean said in a phone interview. “I thought they must be really good-looking. So I got an album and said, ‘No, that’s not it.’ ”
And then she saw them live.
“They were absolutely on, and my little pea brain was blown,” she said. “I couldn’t go to sleep, and I said to myself that when I sang again, it was going to be with that band.”
That’s probably what the Dead’s legion of hyper-obsessed fans said, too, especially in the later days, when people devoted their lives to them (and Ben & Jerry’s did indeed name an ice cream after Jerry Garcia, guitarist for the Dead). But this was 1971, and Jean, it turns out, had the pipes to back up her wish. When she introduced her husband, Keith Godchaux, to Garcia and ensured he would be the band’s next piano player, she was already a successful studio backup singer, recording R&B songs and appearing on such hits as “When a Man Loves a Woman” for Percy Sledge and Elvis tracks for studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., where she lives today. She let her husband have his time with the band and then joined them as a backup singer a few months later.
Now she’s leading her own band, Donna Jean and the Tricksters, a band with heavy Grateful Dead influences that will play Thursday, Sept. 27 at Hodi’s Half Note, 167 N. College Ave. in Fort Collins.
Her husband auditioned for the band during a canceled rehearsal when he and Garcia jammed together. Even to this day, Jean calls it magic. There were many good years until they left the band in 1979. A year later, her husband died in a car crash.
Jean, unlike many of the Dead’s devoted fans, didn’t have to follow the band everywhere. The Dead seemed to follow her. That’s how she got together with the Tricksters. She was a part of a celebration for the 10th anniversary of Garcia’s death. The Tricksters asked her to sit in on a couple of songs, and though she didn’t connect with them right away, she eventually realized the band, with its six lead singers all heavily influenced by the Grateful Dead, would be a perfect fit for her.
“It was a ready-made band,” Jean said. “It’s a lot of work to put a band together, and they were all really good. It’s heaven for me to have all that vocal strength.”
The band also has that backbeat, the R&B staple that kickstarted her career back in Alabama. She was especially impressed with the fact that the band had its own sound, just like Jean had hers. The band recorded its first album and will release it at the end of January.
“They had grown up with the Grateful Dead, and they had embraced that but then moved on to do their own music,” Jean said. “We’re really digging it, and we hope to keep it going as long as we can.”
———
TO GO
• Donna Jean and the Tricksters
• 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27
• Hodi’s Half Note, 167 N. College Ave., Fort Collins.
• Tickets are $10 for 21 and older, $12 for 18 and older in advance at
brownpapertickets.com, by calling 800.838.3006, or go to ABCDs, 157 N. College Ave. Tickets are $12 for 21 and over an $15 18 and older day of show. | Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. |
|
|  | "Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth." | |
|  | We're not that bright, even though in our own little world, we're geniuses. We like 80s hair bands and one-hit wonders, but among us we have respectable tastes, too. Metallica, Iron Maiden, U2. Pursuit of all things trivial is a lifestyle, not just a game. We like some sports, love other sports, and can find something to say about anything. We watch TV and movies and we've read a book or two, even a few classics (Yes, Classic Comics count!)
We call it insight, you call it what you will. | |
|  | Felix Wong is an outdoor enthusiast living in Fort Collins. A mechanical engineer by day, he is especially passionate about bicycling, running, and backpacking. | |
|  | Hola Amigos! I'm Sandra. I like to believe that people are 70 percent good and 30 percent dumb. I'm stickin to that story. Reading this blog might make you want to be good, but probably just dumb. | |
|  | Donovan Henderson is editor of NEXTnc. | |
|  | Here at Nextnc we have some characters. Get a sneak peak behind the curtain and find out what amusing antics our staffers get themselves into on a weekly basis. | |
|  | What is up FoCo?
I am a recent college graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead. After recieving my B.A. in English and Mass Communications this past August I moved down to Colorado.
I enjoy long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and heavy metal. My hobbies include reading and writing, music, movies, and getting drunk. Some of my favorite contemporary authors include Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, and Kurt Vonnegut. My top movies are anything directed by Kubrick. I enjoy listening to anything that rocks.
Right now I am just trying to get to know Colorado and FoCo better. Mostly in order to find the best drink specials on each day that ends in Y. So if you know where I can get a cheap drunk on, let me know!
--Drew | |
|  | Life's little morsels of inspiration, observation and encouragement seen through the eyes of the Nextnc reporter.
| |
|  | Ms. Giles currently lives in Colorado where she stars in her own private reality show. She writes aphoristic accounts of her life, taken completely out of context, and embellished with characters and situations disguised to resemble something close to interesting. | |
|  | over and out | |
| | My name is Michelle Turley and I'm 28 years old. I live in Severance with my hubbie, Brandon. We have 2 dogs and a cat. We enjoy camping, four-wheeling, and just being in the mountains. I like to cook, clean (go figure), flea market, and play poker. I have so much to say about poker... | |
|
|
