Goodbye to Garth Hudson. The Band musician was 87 years old

According to the Toronto Star Garth Hudsonmulti-instrumentalist and founder of The Bandpassed away peacefully in his sleep on Tuesday, January 21st in a nursing home in Woodstock, New York at the age of 87. He was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, on August 2, 1937.

Both of his parents were talented musicians, and Hudson began playing the piano at a very young age. His first official commitments were to play the organ for local church services and for a funeral home owned by his uncle.

In 1949 he played professionally in dance bands in London, Ontario, eventually earning a place in a group called Paul London and the Kapers.

It was after a Kapers show in London in 1961 that Hudson was first approached by his future bandmates Ronnie Hawkins And Levon Helmwho asked him if he would be interested in joining Hawkins’ band, The Hawks. Hudson initially rejected the offer, but eventually accepted on two conditions: that the band buy him a Lowery organ (which would become his signature sound) and that they pay him $10 a week to give “music lessons” to the other members of the band.

Hudson’s condition was a bit strange, but, as legend has it, he asked for the $10 a week to justify his decision to join the band to his parents, claiming that he wasn’t wasting his classical education on rock ‘n’ roll music. ‘not at all. Furthermore, as his bandmates later explained in “The Last Waltz” (“The Last Waltz,” Martin Scorsese’s 1978 concert film of The Band’s last live show), really admired Hudson’s knowledge and benefited from the lessons.

In the end his talents and his sonic ability and vision were undeniable, so the band accepted the extravagant conditions and joined the group.

In the following years, under Hawkins’ leadership, the group established itself. In 1963, however, tensions between Hawkins and the musicians began to surface and eventually Hudson, Helm, bassist Rick Danko, pianist Richard Manuel and guitarist Robbie Robertson left Hawkins to form the first lineup of The Band.

For a while they performed as Levon and The Hawks, while Hudson supplemented his income by working as a session musician for other artists. The big opportunity came in 1965, when the manager Albert Grossman’s assistant, Mary Martin, introduced the group to Bob Dylan.

In November of that year they recorded their first song with Dylan, a single titled “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?”. The following year, they supported Dylan on his controversial “electric tour”.

All of this placed Hudson at the forefront of the musical revolution of the 1960s. But after Dylan suffered a serious motorcycle accident in July 1966, the musicians increased their output until they reached their own musical level. Having moved to a house nicknamed “Big Pink” in West Saugerties, New York, the group – then still nameless – began writing and recording with Dylan an enormous amount of songs, which later became known as the “Basement Tapes”.

In 1968, The Band took on this name and released a debut album of original material, entitled “Music From Big Pink”.

Featuring the group’s signature raw, acoustic sound – plus a handful of cleverly written songs, with some lyrics by Dylan and a slew of musical additions by Hudson – “Big Pink” became a huge hit. The album’s most famous song, “The Weight”, became known for its inclusion in the film Easy Rider, and The Band’s influence began to influence artists around the world, including Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, who once described “Music From Big Pink” as the “second most influential record in the history of rock ‘n’ roll” and stated that it “deeply, deeply, deeply influenced Pink Floyd.”

In September 1969, The Band debuted its self-titled album, which introduced even more classic songs into the Great American Rock ‘n’ Roll Songbook with songs like “Up on Cripple Creek” featuring a new clavinet sound laying the groundwork for it to become a staple still funk on songs like Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and others.

In the Seventies the band released other albums, including “Stage Fright” in 1970, the live album “Rock of Ages” in 1972 and “Northern Lights – Southern Cross” in 1975.

In 1976, however, The Band’s initial career came to an end. On Thanksgiving, the group performed for the last time at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco with some friends, including Hawkins, Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Ringo Starr, Neil Young and many others. The concert was immortalized in the now iconic film “The Last Waltz”, directed by a young Martin Scorsese.

After the end of The Band’s adventure, Gart Hudson dedicated himself to other session work for other artists, including Emmylou Harris, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison and others.

He reunites with his former bandmates again when a version of The Band without Robertson reunites in the early Eighties. The group toured for a few years and also released a few more albums including 1996’s “High on the Hog”, but finally disbanded in 1999 after Danko’s death.

In the final years of his life, Hudson continued to collaborate with other artists – such as Neko Case, Secret Machines, The Lemonheads and others – but largely maintained his business and private life, remaining out of the public eye.

His last live appearance was in April 2023, when he performed a version of Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” at a house party in Kingston, New York.

Before him, the bassist had passed away Rick Danko (1943 – 1999), drummer Levon Helm (1940 – 2012), singer and pianist Richard Manuel (1943 – 1986) and the guitarist Robbie Robertson (1943 – 2023).