Jeff Mattson

Jack Barton Entertainment is pleased to announce the signing of Andy Logan Productions to a management contract, involving a number of different artistic efforts.

Andy Logan started collecting Grateful Dead-influenced and played guitars and….things began to happen: he is now the Executive Producer of Alex Jordan’s forthcoming release Queen Kerosene, produced by four-time Grammy winner Steve Berlin, out in March 2024.

In a land abundant with Grateful Dead tribute bands, Dark Star Orchestra (DSO) on February 2 in Sacramento, California, strengthened its unofficial claim as the quintessential torch bearers. Flanked by a devoted and euphoric nearly sold-out audience at the 975-capacity Crest Theatre, the band on this night didn’t replicate an actual Grateful Dead show as they are inclined to do.

Today, the torch-bearing Grateful Dead tribute act Dark Star Orchestra announces the lineup for their ninth annual Dark Star Jubilee music festival. Produced by All Good Presents, the event was created as a band-curated continuation of the ongoing celebration of the music of the Grateful Dead, the Dark Star Jubilee has become a Midwest tradition for kicking off the summer season with three-nights of music, camping and community.

The jam band enthusiasts—“aged Deadheads”—and hipsters alike, all made their way out from the depths of the Colorado Front Range for a night of Grateful Dead tribute and homage. Dark Star Orchestra made the Dead fans of Denver “Get Up, Get Off, Get Out of the Door,” to suit up for an original setlist and production at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on July 5th, 2021.

Andy Logan is a Dead Head who recognizes (along with the rest of us!) that Dead music is our common heritage and a nurturing source of love for us all.  Wanting to support that, and having a collection of guitars, he began to lend and sometimes give special instruments to gifted players who didn’t have the means to acquire them on their own.  This came to include not only first-quality examples of the types of guitars that Garcia and Weir had played, but then instruments built for them, as well as instruments Jerry owned, most famously “Alligator,” his axe from the era of Europe ’

Grateful Web recently had the honor of visiting with Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay. While most folks are familiar with Donna Jean as the radiant co-vocalist of 1970s Grateful Dead, augmenting some of the seminal group’s most celebrated tunes such as “The Music Never Stopped,” “Cassidy,” “Mississippi Half-Step,” and “Playing in the Band,” she holds deeper roots in Americana as a 1960s session musician of the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.

Some 14 years ago, Donna Jean and the Tricksters (Donna Jean Godchaux and the Zen Tricksters, basically) put out an album of the same name.  It included a song called “Shelter.”  As the pandemic took over our lives, Donna Jean thought about the new meaning of the song and….but let me let her tell you about it:

They’ll be fresh off DSO’s Fall Tour, but they can’t resist making music together, so Mattson/Barraco & Friends with Skip Vangelas is pleased to announce a holiday season 3-night run of stirring psychedelic electricity!

Dark Star Orchestra crashed into Eugene’s McDonald Theatre last Saturday night and poured their brilliant light into ashes of moments, shows and tours past. 

They resurrected a spry Dead set from early ’87—April 7, Brendan Byrne Arena (NJ)—that  again moved a crowd of hopeful dreamers and warmed yearning hearts with smiles, smiles, smiles.

Donna Jean Godchaux Band with Jeff Mattson is proud to announce the release of their debut album, Back Around on February 18, 2014.The album will be sold for digital download through Heart of Gold Records’ exclusive agreement with The Orchard on ITunes and other digital media CD distribution will be online through Grateful Dead (Dead.net), CD Baby and Amazon.com.Recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL at the Nutthouse Recording Studio, the album blends a Muscle Shoals groove with a psychedelic San Francisco vibe.

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