Keith Godchaux

My bad. Again. As usual. I'm late. I have a problem writing posts when I don't feel like writing posts. I should really pre-write my tribute posts and pop them up here on the appropriate days. Or maybe I should just get over my feelings and post every single day.

So I am belatedly celebrating Keith Godchaux's 60th birthday and the 28th anniversary of his tragic passing. Keith would have celebrated his 60th birthday last Saturday (July 19th) had he not been killed in a car crash two days after his 32nd birthday (July 21, 1980).

For those of you who do not know who Keith is let me enlighten you. He played keyboards and is best known for his years with the Grateful Dead. Before the Dead he played with Dave Mason. He recorded an album with his wife Donna in '75 and both played in the Jerry Garcia Band for a couple of years in the latter part of the seventies. He also wrote the song, Six Feet of Snow, with Little Feat's Lowell George.

I took this photo of Keith on May 17, 1974 at the Grateful Dead show in Vancouver.

It's really hard to find footage of Keith playing...this is the Dead playing Winterland in the Fall of '74. There's only a brief clip of the keyboard player near the end. I'm hoping it's Keith.



Happy Birthday and I hope you're rocking upstairs.