Garth Hudson, influential Americana musician and last surviving member of the Band, dead at 87

Garth Hudson, the immensely talented organist and multi-instrumentalist whose contributions graced many classic songs by the famed 1960s and 1970s rock group The Band, including "Up on Cripple Creek," "Chest Fever," and "Ophelia," passed away on Tuesday at the age of 87. He was the last surviving member of the highly influential band.

Hudson, a Canadian native, had resided in Woodstock, New York for many years, where he died. He was lauded as one of rock music's greatest keyboardists. Furthermore, he played saxophone, accordion, and other instruments for The Band and Bob Dylan, for whom The Band served as a backing group from the mid-1960s to the 1970s.

The Band, in a social media post on Tuesday, called him "a musical genius and the cornerstone of the Band’s timeless sound," adding "Rest in peace, Garth." The group, consisting of four Canadians and one American, recorded nine albums from 1960 to 1976 before regrouping to record three more in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Band’s first two albums, 1968’s “Music from Big Pink” and 1969’s “The Band,” are considered among the greatest in rock history. The Band's music blended folk, blues, country, and soul influences, and they were also pioneers of what is now known as "Americana music." The Band also participated in three of Dylan’s albums, including the highly acclaimed, often-bootlegged “Basement Tapes,” and Dylan appeared on many of the Band’s songs, most notably “Tears of Rage” and “This Wheel’s on Fire.”

The Band first broke up after releasing the album “Islands” in 1977, having stopped touring the year before, with a farewell concert in San Francisco called "The Last Waltz." Martin Scorcese filmed a concert movie of the same name in 1978, featuring a host of guest performers including Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Ringo Starr, and Neil Young. Besides Hudson, The Band included other Canadians, guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson, bassist Rick Danko, and pianist Richard Manuel, along with American drummer Levon Helm. Vocals were shared by Danko, Helm, and Manuel. The Band reunited in the 1980s without Robertson, and disbanded after Danko’s death in 1999. Hudson was the last surviving original member of The Band: Manuel died in 1986, Helm in 2012, and Robertson in 2023.

The Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. They were also highly regarded in Canada, inducted into the Juno Awards Hall of Fame in 1989 and receiving a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto in 2014. As an individual, Hudson was also inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, the London Music Hall of Fame, and was most recently awarded the Order of Canada in 2019.

Eric “Garth” Hudson was born in Windsor, Ontario, on Aug. 2, 1937. The classically trained musician grew up in London, Ontario, and played the organ at his uncle’s funeral home. In 1961, when Hudson joined the group that would eventually become The Band, he insisted that the other members pay him $10 a week for music lessons. This made the arrangement more palatable to his parents.

Initially, the group backed rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, and were known as the Hawks. Robertson wrote in his 2016 memoir that Hudson initially seemed out of place. “Garth was quiet, obviously a little different … (but) his playing was extraordinary, more sophisticated than anyone we had worked with before.” Helm recalled: “We privately called Garth ‘H.B.,’ meaning ‘Honey Boy,’ because at the end of the day, when the other instruments were packed up, Garth would still be in the studio, polishing tracks, stacking chords, adding brass, woodwinds, whatever it took to make the music sing.”

The frog croaks in the 1969 song “Up on Cripple Creek” were Hudson playing an electronic keyboard through a wah-wah pedal. He contributed all the brass and woodwinds to the song "Ophelia." In The Band’s most famous song, “The Weight,” Hudson played the piano. But his signature piece was the 1968 song “Chest Fever,” a majestic organ performance that opens with a reference to Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.” Other Band songs showcasing Hudson’s talents include “Stage Fright,” “Bessie Smith,” and “It Makes No Difference.” Robertson said: “Garth was a teacher, but so much more than that. He was a comrade, a part of our street gang, a brother in arms, a revelation of how much is inside an instrument and how much you can actually get out of it.”

Beyond The Band, Hudson collaborated with numerous artists well into the 2010s, including Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Emmylou Harris, Marianne Faithfull, Norah Jones, Neko Case, Mercury Rev, John Hiatt, the Lemonheads, and many more. He sometimes performed as a duo with his wife, Maud Marie Kegel Hudson, who sang and played guitar. She died in February 2022 at the age of 71.

Hudson released a solo album, “The Sea to the North,” in 2001. In 2010, he released “Garth Hudson Presents: A Canadian Celebration of the Band,” a compilation of Canadian artists covering the band, including Bruce Cockburn and Neil Young. According to media reports, Hudson had been in poor health in recent years and had experienced some financial difficulties. The reclusive musician had lived in Woodstock for decades. Barney Hoskyns, who wrote a biography of The Band in 1993, told The New York Times in 2013: “He’s absolutely the most original, the most brilliant and the most moving keyboard player in rock.”