Following their departure from the Dead, he and his wife Donna formed the Heart of Gold Band in 1980, but Godchaux died from injuries sustained in a car accident shortly after their first concert.
He began piano lessons at age five at the instigation of his father (a semi-professional musician) and subsequently played Dixieland and cocktail jazz in professional ensembles as a teenager.
[1] He met and married former FAME Studios session vocalist Donna Jean Thatcher in November 1970; their son Zion, of the band BoomBox, was born in 1974.
The couple introduced themselves to Jerry Garcia at a concert in August 1971; coincidentally, ailing keyboardist/vocalist Ron "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.
Remembering their initial meeting, drummer Bill 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.
"[3] Although the band had employed several other keyboardists (including Howard Wales, Merl Saunders and Ned Lagin) as session musicians to augment McKernan's limited instrumental contributions following the departure of Tom Constanten in January 1970, Godchaux was invited to join the group as a permanent member in September 1971.
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 the Yamaha CP-70 electric grand piano in September 1977.
Initially, Godchaux incorporated a richly melodic, fluid and boogie-woogie-influenced style that intuitively complemented the band's improvisational approach to rock music; critic Robert Christgau characterized his playing as "a cross between Chick Corea and Little Richard.
Following the Grateful Dead's 1975 hiatus, he largely yielded to a simpler comping-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 a Polymoog during the group's spring 1977 tour), this tendency was foregrounded by the reintegration of second drummer Mickey Hart, resulting in a heavily percussive sound with little sustain beyond Garcia's leads.
However, Godchaux's playing in the Jerry 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.
"[10] Keyboardist/vocalist Brent 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 at San Jose State University's Spartan 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 lyricist Robert Hunter released on Wake of the Flood (1973).
[11] A touring iteration of the Keith & Donna Band with Kreutzmann on drums and former Quicksilver Messenger Service equipment manager Stephen Schuster on saxophone frequently opened for Grateful Dead–related groups in 1975, allowing Garcia to sit in on several occasions.
[13] He also formed The Ghosts (later rechristened The Heart of Gold Band) with his wife; this Bay Area-based aggregation eventually came to include a young Steve Kimock on guitar.
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.