I saw her about a year and a half ago at a Black Tie Concert with DSO and she was fabulous! It was great to see her after so many years.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him."

Let's just say that Donna Jean's work with the Dead (which was before my time) is an area on which mileage varies wildly, and so be it.

I WILL say that this is the second time this week I've really wished a Golden Road story were readily available, because back in the olden days Blair did a really good interview with her that was quite enlightening on several fronts. Including her regular inability to hear herself in the mix, with the results that generated much complaint.

Donna Jean, however, has moved on and has been singing with a number of other bands lately, most recently the Zen Tricksters, and I've gotta say, I have not heard a negative word about her current work from anyone. Quite the reverse.

So I do think there's a bit of a that was then, this is now issue going on with her work. Things are not as they were in the '70s...

Jerry really dug Donna.
Why else would he have her JGB fer so ,long!
For lack of a better backup singer, I think not...

In JGB she was very good, she was in tune and everything!.

After listening to many interviews from the '70's
Jerry obviously saw something in her..

I must admit, some of the early Donna + GD stuff seems like she's tone deaf but from my understanding the band was so loud she couldn't hear herself.

Basically what I'm saying is Jerry knew more about this than anybody, obviously. He wanted her in tboth GD and JGB for a reason. That's why I cut her the slack
that some people don't.

She does have all that (above) going for her and on top of that she was part of some of the best GD and JGB ever....
Just my .02

Lossless

....he's just GRTUD, that's all."

GRTUD is to the profession of Psychiatry as George Costanzia is to Architecture. Nuf said.

In another note, Vince's work with The Tubes was incredible. My idea is that the Grateful Dead became afraid to venture out of it's comfort zone musically (even though they really wanted to, which is possibly why they hired Vince in the first place), in part because they didn't want to disappoint those fans that were behind the time / space curve (in relation to the evolution of their music) and that contributed to some sort of "dogmatizing" of their music (I also think it had to do with not rehearsing as much as they had in the past due to various circumstances). Folks like Vince may have been caught in some of that turmoil, musically and professionally, I don't know - I'm just speculating. I don't disagree with a previous post, just been trying to figure out what the hell happened from a spectator's point of view. The interesting thing about our whole scene is that hind sight is NOT 20/20, which is weird (but cool too). Again, I don't know anything about music technically because it's my last form of true entertainment. If I were to learn it technically, it would ruin the release I get when I'm in it's presence. I love turning that 4 hours of time over to someone else completely and not having to dissect and analyze every tiny detail. That's what I'm paying the performers for, after all. To put my idea another way, I know what I like and what I don't like, but I can't really say why and I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. In terms of critiquing the Grateful Dead and any of what it was or is, it may in fact be a journey into the heart of one's own soul but only because of how remarkable ALL the cast of characters are/were. I don't know but I've been told.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him."

I can go either way. Sometimes Donna is right on the money and she fucking rocks. Other times I feel like she just makes noise. I'm listening to Don't let Go, JGB right now and I think she's great on this show. She was recently in town playing a gig and I heard that it was really good.
I don't think anybody should catch any flack for their opinions on the various line ups through the years. We're all hear to talk about this stuff aren't we? battman mentioned Vince up above, I think he said he was terrible. I think that his work with the Tubes was cool but I'm not too crazy about all of his work with the dead. Some very cool, some not so cool. Just an opinion.