Singer Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay has tragically passed away at the age of 78. The talented vocalist was a former member of the Grateful Dead, one of the most iconic rock bands when the genre was at its peak. She also collaborated on singles with Elvis Presley and other music legends over the span of her career.She is survived by several family members, including her son Zion “Rock” Godchaux. Having grown up with a heavy exposure to life in entertainment, Zion wound up with his parents’ sensibilities and pursued a music career. “Rock” is perhaps best known for his role in the two-man electronic rock duo BoomBox.Godchaux-MacKay’s death was confirmed to PEOPLE by one of her representatives. After a long battle with cancer, she passed at a hospice facility in Nashville on November 2. Her team also released an official statement,“She was a sweet and warmly beautiful spirit, and all those who knew her are united in loss. The family requests privacy at this time of grieving. In the words of Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, ‘May the four winds blow her safely home.’”Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay - A timelineDonna Jean Godchaux-MacKay was an Alabama native. At the onset of her career, she spent most of her time singing in controlled studio environments as a session singer and appearing on several major chart-topping hits.She then decided to uproot her life and move to California, where she met keyboard player Keith Godchaux. The two married in 1970 and joined the Grateful Dead in 1971, a year later.In an interview with AL.com from 2016, Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay recalled that her love for music was developed at an early age.“I was singing from pretty much as soon as I could talk. I remember very distinctly when I was 6 years old, I knew I was going to be a singer and I would sit out on my back porch and sing to the top of my lungs every day.”In the same interview, she touched on her experience working with Elvis,“so kind to us and encouraging and complimentary… And he looked great. I’m telling you, he was the most gorgeous human being I’ve ever seen.”Ultimately, Donna Jean and Keith realized their lifestyle as members of the Grateful Dead was not the ideal environment for a family. In a 2014 Rolling Stone interview, Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay cited Zion’s birth in 1974 as a major turning point for her and her husband,“Keith and I, we were wasted. We were exhausted. And the band was exhausted with us. The band knew we had to be out of the band, and Keith and I had been talking about ‘How in the world do you quit the Grateful Dead?’ It was sad, but it was what needed to happen. It was turning into being not profitable for anybody. We needed to go, and they needed for us to go.”After Keith Godchaux’s untimely death in 1980, Donna Jean would remarry. Her second husband, musician David MacKay, mourns the loss of his wife alongside their son Kinsman and Donna Jean’s grandchildren.