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4 unusual facts about Jeff Mattson


Donna Jean Godchaux

In 2009, Donna Jean formed a brand new band, the Donna Jean Godchaux Band, with Jeff Mattson (of Phil Lesh and Friends, Zen Tricksters, and Dark Star Orchestra), after re-entering the music scene with Mattson and Mookie Siegel (of David Nelson Band, Phil Lesh and Friends, and Ratdog) to form Kettle Joe's Psychedelic Swamp Revue, later known as Donna Jean & the Tricksters.

Jeff Mattson

Jeff was asked to audition for Phil Lesh & Friends in the fall of 1999 and in October 1999, Jeff and then Zen Trickster keyboard player, Rob Barraco, played three shows with Phil Lesh and Friends at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco.

A founding member of the jam band, the Zen Tricksters, and guitarist in the Donna Jean Godchaux Band with Jeff Mattson, which features the Grateful Dead’s Donna Jean Godchaux, Mattson was named the permanent lead guitarist for Dark Star Orchestra.

He is a co-writer of “Leave Me Out of This,” a track on Phil Lesh and Friends Sony CD, "There and Back Again."



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