Grateful Dead's Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay dies, aged 78

Grateful Dead singer Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay has died at the age of 78.

A spokesperson confirmed that the artist died of cancer on Sunday, November 2 in Nashville.

The Alabama native got her start as a session performer, contributing to Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds, Percy Sledge’s When a Man Loves a Woman and songs with Neil Diamond, Boz Scaggs and Cher.

She and her then-husband Keith Godchaux joined the Grateful Dead in the early 1970s. The pair stayed with the band for a number of albums, including Terrapin Station, Shakedown Street and From the Mars Hotel, before splitting from the group in 1979.

The singer appeared on numerous Grateful Dead tracks, such as 'Scarlet Begonias' and 'From the Heart of Me'.

Godchaux-MacKay and her fellow bandmates were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

The Godchauxs, who had released the record Keith & Donna in 1975, planned to form their own band, however, Keith died in 1980 after an automobile accident.

Godchaux-MacKay released Donna Jean and the Tricksters in 2008 and Back Around in 2014.

She married bassist David MacKay in 1981.