Happy Birthday Keith Godchaux: Rehearsing With The Grateful Dead In 1976

Today marks what would have been Grateful Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux’s 72nd birthday. Godchaux played keys for the Grateful Dead throughout the 1970s. Sadly, he died tragically on July 23, 1980 from head injuries sustained in a car accident on his 32nd birthday just four days earlier.

Born in Seattle but raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Godchaux cut his teeth playing piano with various lounge acts as a teenager. But Keith aspired for more and was afforded the chance when he and his wife, Donna Jean Godchaux, introduced themselves to Jerry Garcia at a show in August of 1970. Later, GD drummer Bill Kreutzman would note in his autobiography, Deal, of how impressed Garcia was with Godchaux’s playing.

“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.”

As Kreutzmann notes, the Grateful Dead’s keyboardist/vocalist/harmonica player Ron “Pigpen” McKernan was having health issues related to alcohol and the band had already brought in Tom Constanten for supplemental help on the keys. But Tom left in 1970 and the Dead were in need of another piano man. Keith played his first show with the Grateful Dead alongside Pigpen on October 19, 1971 at the University of Minnesota’s Northrup Auditorium.

Donna Jean joined the band in 1972 and Keith would assume the sole keyboardist role after Pigpen’s death in 1973. While the piano was Godchaux’s main axe, he also acquired a Fender Rhodes in the mid-70s and has some fantastic work on that instrument as well. Keith wasn’t a flashy player. What made him great was he knew exactly what needed to be played, exactly when it needed to be played, an immense and underrated skill.

On July 12, 1976 the Grateful Dead were in the midst of a six-night residency at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco. Over 30 years later, video surfaced of the band doing an extended soundcheck/rehearsal which included “Dancin’ In The Streets,” “They Love Each Other,” “The Music Never Stopped,” “Stella Blue,” “Let It Grow,” “Eyes Of The World” and more.

To celebrate Keith Godchaux’s birthday, check out the GD keyboardist rehearsing with the band below via voodoonola for this birthday edition of Sunday Cinema:

Setlist

Soundcheck: Dancin’ In The Streets, They Love Each Other, The Music Never Stopped (1), The Music Never Stopped (2), Stella Blue (1), Let It Shine, Stella Blue (2), Let It Grow, Eyes of the World