Garth Hudson, the last remaining founder member of the Band, has died aged 87.
The multi-instrumentalist, who played keyboards and saxophone for the bestselling 1960s folk-rockers as well as Bob Dylan, died peacefully in his sleep at the Woodstock nursing home he lived in, the executor of his estate confirmed to the Toronto Star.
Hudson’s variously spirited and melancholy organ lines were a key part of the Band’s sound – including his psychedelically vamping intro to Chest Fever – and he was also an accordionist, including on the Dylan-penned When I Paint My Masterpiece. Hudson was also responsible for recording and archiving the sessions that became The Basement Tapes, with the Band and Dylan playing ad-hoc songs in a house in upstate New York.
Born Eric Hudson into a family of musicians in Windsor, Canada, in 1937, Hudson played church organ, piano and accordion during his childhood and had written his first song by the age of 11. Still in his teens, he joined a band – later called the Kapers – in London, Ontario, where his family had moved.
Ronnie Hawkins and Levon Helm saw Hudson perform and wanted to recruit him to their group the Hawks – though Hudson initially resisted as he was planning on becoming a music teacher. After agreeing to teach music theory to the rest of the band as part of his employment with them, he joined the lineup, also featuring Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel – minus Hawkins, who they split from in 1963, they later became the Band.
Still as the Hawks, they were hired by Dylan to be his backing band (in part after being recommended by Dylan’s manager’s secretary). Dylan had recently moved away from his folk roots and embraced electric guitar, to the anger of some – Hudson was in the band when an audience member shouted “Judas!” at Dylan in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall.
The group remained close to Dylan on their return, moving up to a big pink house in Saugerties in rural New York in 1967, ahead of the summer of love. It was here that they wrote the Band’s debut album Music from Big Pink, and where they recorded songs with Dylan that were much bootlegged until they were compiled on The Basement Tapes in 1975. These included Dylan classics such as I Shall Be Released, as well as songs with Dylan for the Band, such as Tears of Rage and This Wheel’s on Fire.
Hudson created the recording setup there, with stereo mixers, tape recorder and microphones. “That’s really the way to do a recording,” Dylan later said. “In a peaceful, relaxed setting – in somebody’s basement. With the windows open … and a dog lying on the floor.” Hudson also archived the tapes himself in a wooden box of his own design.
He was also behind other imaginative recording techniques, such as feeding a clavinet through a wah-wah pedal – the croaky, funky results can be heard on Up on Cripple Creek.
The group recorded seven studio albums between 1968 and 1977 – their self-titled 1969 album and 1970’s Stage Fright both reached the US Top 10 – and bowed out of touring with The Last Waltz, an all-star concert documented on film by Martin Scorsese. Hudson then joined the reunited Band in 1983, and released three more albums with them during the 1990s.
He also took on session work in the 1980s with artists such as Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison and Leonard Cohen, and performed The Wall with Roger Waters in Berlin in 1990 alongside Band bandmates and other star guests. Aside from an exhibition soundtrack he composed in 1980, he released little solo music, aside from a 2001 studio album The Sea to the North.
As a member of the Band, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and given a lifetime achievement Grammy award in 2008.
He was courted by younger artists, playing with indie rock stars during the 21st century such as Neko Case and Secret Machines. In 2010 he released Garth Hudson Presents: A Canadian Celebration of the Band, featuring cover versions of Band songs played by him alongside Neil Young and others.
