Garth Hudson – a musical giant: RIP
January 22, 2025
Bill Taylor writes: Bob Dylan, at 83, may be feeling intimations of mortality with the news that Garth Hudson, last surviving member of The Band, and keyboard player on the 1966 world tour where Dylan went electric, has died. He was 87.
Hudson reportedly went peacefully in his sleep early today at a nursing home in Woodstock, upstate New York, the town where he had lived for years. He was Canadian, born and raised in Ontario.
(Garth Hudson: Image by Bill Taylor)
Keyboard magazine described him as “the most brilliant organist in the rock world.”
He was also a noted saxophone and accordion player.
With The Band, Hudson was a veteran of the Woodstock Festival – which was actually held almost 100 kilometres from the town.
He’d played, and wowed the crowds, in just about every major music venue around the world. And some of the smallest, too.
I met him, albeit briefly, twice in Toronto, in 2003 when he sat in on gigs with my late Australian friend and roots musician Greg Quill.
The first was in a tiny neighbourhood bar with no more than a dozen people in the audience. The second was when Greg and his songwriting partner Kerryn Tolhurst launched a new album at another, bigger Toronto bar.
Hudson was quiet, self-effacing, sitting towards the back of the stage. His piano and accordion riffs, improvised and unrehearsed, were electrifying.
I’ve written about that already for Salut! Live – https://www.salutlive.com/2024/06/the-night-i-joined-the-band.html
(Greg Quill, Kerryn Tolhurst, Garth Hudson: Image by Bill Taylor)
Hudson’s parents were both accomplished musicians and he received classical piano training. He played the organ in church – and also, reportedly, at his uncle’s funeral home – and was sitting in with a dance band before he was even into his teens.
Flamboyant rock-and-roller Ronnie Hawkins – American but based for most of his life in Ontario – and Levon Helm recruited Hudson for their band The Hawks in 1961. One of the conditions Hudson laid down was that they buy him a Lowrey organ, which he had long coveted. He was paid a little extra, too, for giving his bandmates music lessons.
Most rock-band keyboard players used a Hammond organ but the more complex Lowrey gave Hudson greater scope. It became one of his trademarks.
The Hawks split with Hawkins in 1963 and two years later met Bob Dylan. They first recorded Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? with him and then other songs for his Blonde on Blonde double album.
And they became The Band, superstars in their own right. After they stopped touring in 1976 – documented in Martin Scorsese’s wonderful film, The Last Waltz – Hudson did session work with the likes of Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, Emmylou Harris and Elton John, who credited Hudson’s playing as an early influence on his own work.
Hudson’s view of music is perhaps summed up by something he tells Scorsese in The Last Waltz: “There is a view that jazz is evil because it comes from evil people but actually the greatest priests… on the streets of New York City were the musicians, They were doing the greatest healing work. They knew how to punch through music that would cure and make people feel good.”
Feeling good. I’m only going to link to one track by The Band – Chest Fever, led off by Hudson’s soaring virtuoso solo on the Lowrey:
There’s an old song that says, If there’s a rock ’n’ roll heaven, you know they’ve got a helluva band.
I like to think that THE Band – Levon Helm and Hudson’s fellow Canadians Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel – are off on their own, doing their own uproarious thing.
RIP? Nah, maybe just: Rock on!
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Read more: Bill’s piece on Dylan’s 1966 tour.
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