Garth Hudson, the Band‘s genius multi-instrumentalist and careful archivist, has died. He was 87. The Toronto Star confirmed that he passed away in his sleep this morning at a nursing home in Woodstock, New York. Longtime friend Jan Haust told Rolling Stone that “yesterday was a day of music and hand-holding.”
He was group’s last living member – and its most unique. Longtime collaborator Levon Helm once said “you could take anybody out of the Band — Robbie [Robertson], Rick [Danko] or him — and it would still be the Band,” producer John Simon later told the Times-Herald Record. “But it wouldn’t be the Band without Garth.”
Hudson was born in Windsor, Ontario and raised by a musical family two hours away in London. He initially studied classical music, then fell in love with rock ‘n’ roll. “I played trumpet and saxophone through high school,” Hudson told the Woodstock Times in 1985. “Then somewhere about 1952, 1953, I began to pick up Alan Freed’s Moondog Matinee from Akron/Cleveland from 5:05 to 5:55. … It was one of the first successful rock ‘n’ roll shows. So, I knew someone over there was having more fun than I was.”
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Hudson played in a series of local bands before attracting the attention of Ronnie Hawkins, who recruited him to join a rockabilly-influenced predecessor to the Band called the Hawks. They later toured separately as Levon and the Hawks before Robertson, Danko and Richard Manuel began backing Bob Dylan as he transitioned from folk to rock.
Then the group struck out on their own with a returning Helm. Now simply known as the Band, they helped set a template for Americana with albums like Music From Big Pink, The Band and The Basement Tapes, the latter led by Dylan.
“We were so locked in, in a musicality, and in a personal way, that we invented something that had a big effect on the course of music,” Robertson later mused. “We weren’t trendy, because we didn’t know what the trend was — and didn’t want to. We were going into our own world, our own dimension, and discovering a musicality, a sound, everything.”
The ‘Royal Albert Hall’ Concert, released in 1998, documented Hudson and the Band’s then-controversial 1966 tour with Dylan as he went electric. Next, everyone gathered in a pink house near Woodstock in West Saugerties, New York, to explore their next musical adventures. Hudson served as curator for those genre-sparking recordings beginning in the summer of 1967. Bootlegs of the sessions pointed to a newfound focus on roots music that played out on their next official studio recordings, but the The Basement Tapes wouldn’t be released until 1975.
By then, Hudson had left an indelible musical stamp on the Band. Trained in piano and music theory, Hudson had a canny intuition for accompaniment. He’d take a conventional turn at the piano on favorites like “The Weight” and “Rag Mama Rag,” but also played sax on “Unfaithful Servant,” clavinet on “Up On Cripple Creek” and accordion on Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”
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Robertson once argued that “Garth was far and away the most advanced musician in rock ‘n’ roll.” With Hudson, Helm said they “really thought we were the best band in the world.” His in-concert showcase found Hudson performing an extended introduction to “Chest Fever” on a signature Lowrey organ that became known as the “Genetic Method.” Hudson played all of the woodwinds and brass on 1975’s deeply underrated Northern Lights-Southern Cross even as he began mastering synthesizers.
Hudson worked as a sessions musician following The Last Waltz, which marked the end of the Band’s five-man lineup. Key appearances along the way included Van Morrison‘s Wavelength and Leonard Cohen‘s Recent Songs. Hudson played sax and accordion as part of Roger Waters‘ massive 1990 concert performance of Pink Floyd‘s The Wall in Germany at the Berlin Wall.
He could be professorial, with an interior manner that befuddled some interviewers. Late in life, Hudson would only talk to them after midnight. He might wander into a song in the middle of an answer – or he might not answer at all.
During one discussion about The Basement Tapes, BBC radio host Justin Webb memorably asked Hudson about the mood in the room back then. Hudson replied: “We were thinking, from beginning to end, that Bob Dylan was cool.”
Webb: “But what mood was he in?” Hudson: “As I told you, he was cool.” Webb: “You’re not going to go further than that?” Hudson: “There were no indications that he wasn’t anything other than cool.”
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The Band reunited without Robertson for regular tours in the ’80s, releasing a trio of albums beginning with 1993’s Jericho. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Hudson co-produced and played on Burrito Deluxe’s 2004 album The Whole Enchilada, with Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers. He toured with his wife, Sister Maud, and an 11-piece band while also contributing to solo projects by Robertson, Danko and Helm.
Hudson performed “When I Paint My Masterpiece” with John Prine and “Chest Fever” with Dierks Bentley during 2013’s all-star Love for Levon benefit concert. His recordings then provided the roadmap for the sweeping look back on 2014’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete. He joined Warren Haynes on stage in 2017 for The Last Waltz 40 Tour: A Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of ‘The Last Waltz’.
Only occasionally recording as a leader, Hudson released his first solo project Music for Our Lady Queen of the Angels in 1980. His next album, The Sea to the North, wouldn’t arrive until 2001. Live at the Wolf, performed in his hometown of London, Ontario, followed in 2005. One of his best-received projects found Hudson recruiting and collaborating on old Band material with a series of stars including Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn and Cowboy Junkies for 2010’s Garth Hudson Presents: A Canadian Celebration of the Band.
He worked well outside of traditional roots circles, making notable contributions to recordings, documentaries and concerts by Wilco, Neko Case, the Call, Cyndi Lauper, Daniel Lanois, Muddy Waters, North Mississippi All-Stars and the Lemonheads. Hudson’s most recent public appearance dated back to April 2023, when he performed Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” during a house concert at Flower Hill House in Kingston, New York. Manuel died in 1986, Danko in 1999, Helm in 2012 and Robertson in 2023.
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Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp
