The Song Remains: Garth Hudson (1937-2025)

Garth Hudson performing with The Band in 1971

A virtuoso, an artist, an inventor, a genius – Garth Hudson, the mystic.

It almost makes sense that Garth Hudson was the last surviving member of The Band, he seemed to live his life almost outside of time itself, keeping the same humble yet overflowingly talented persona until the end. On 21st January in Woodstock, New York, Hudson passed away at the age of 87, not too far from Big Pink where music history was made in a basement.

Eric Garth Hudson was born on August 2nd, 1937 in Windsor, Ontario. He was raised in a family of musicians, both parents talented multi-instrumentalists. After a move to London, Ontario, Hudson began classical piano lessons, soon playing organ at his church and his uncle’s funeral parlour. Hudson’s musical ability developed rapidly, but so did his individuality, he spent a year studying music at the University of West Ontario before the classical repertoire was too constrictive, and he dropped out.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Hudson played in bands, primarily focusing on saxophone and piano, but it was in 1961 that the earliest days of The Band began to form. After a performance with his band Kapers, Hudson was scouted by rockabilly artist Ronnie Hawkins and, soon to be Band drummer and vocalist, Levon Helm. After a little persistence, Hudson agreed to join Hawkins’ band, on the condition that he be given a Lowrey organ, a request that would carve out the initial place for Hudson’s future classically infused organ work. An already obviously guiding figure, Hudson also requested to be paid an extra $10 a week to be the Hawks members’ music teacher. Whilst this was partly just a way to please his parents after leaving behind a prestigious music education to move into the unsteady world of rock and roll, even at the age of 24, Hudson already had a world of knowledge to share.

Hudson joined 21-year-old Helm, and teens Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel as Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band, this was the lineup that would make music history. Oldest member, Hudson brought a kind of gentle wisdom, a personality that couldn’t quite be figured out, yet pushed the group’s sound forward as confidently as the frontiersman his image conveyed. For a group of Canadians, and lone American Helm, The Band were about to capture almost every genre in American music and shape it into what perhaps really is Americana.

After splitting from Hawkins, the group were introduced to Bob Dylan in 1965, the following year recording for what would become the remarkable “Blonde on Blonde”. Whether or not the Band would become the Band, or Dylan would become Dylan without his controversial electric turn is questionable, but luckily, we don’t have to know a world where that wasn’t the case. Dylan and The Band shook up the folk world by a simple shift to electric guitar. Hudson was unfazed by the chemical effects of a Dylan tour and the drugs that came along with it, or by the paranoia and criticism of the electric switch-up, or by the fame at all, “It was a job. Play a stadium, play a theatre. My job was to provide arrangements with pads underneath, pads and fills behind good poets. Same poems every night.” Hudson recalled in a rare 2003 interview. World tour or not, music was just a job for Hudson, one that he over-excelled at.

After the infamous “electric” tour, The Band and Dylan found a creative refuge in the Big Pink, the Woodstock, NY house whose basement laid the ground for the future of The Band. Throughout 1967, the group recorded what would come to be known as “The Basement Tapes” for Dylan. The next year, the group of five now inseparable musicians renamed themselves, simply and fittingly, The Band. They released “Music From Big Pink” and a career almost incomparable to any other group of the time sparked. The album saw the first solid demonstration of The Band’s capabilities to create music that was so unpredictable, yet perfectly crafted. Featuring songs like ‘The Weight’ and a cover of Lefty Frizzell’s ‘Long Black Veil’, it stated just how reluctant The Band were to be constrained by genre, developing a musical hybridity that worked outside of time. It was steeped in American roots tradition but couldn’t be defined by anything that came before it, it was modern yet familiar. Hudson’s majestic organ moment on ‘Chest Fever’ exampling this originality, it would evolve into a spectacle of its own in live shows, the solo organ introduction getting its own title, The Genetic Method’. “Music From Big Pink” placed American music in a new light.

Followed up by sophomore album “The Band” in 1969, their sound was confident, recognisable and inimitable. The “Brown Album” holds countless moments of Honey-Boy Hudson’s genius. He conjured up a distinctively southern feel on ‘Up on Cripple Creek’ by playing the clavinet through a wah-wah pedal, a syncopated croaking frog if ever there was one. His ragtime honky-tonk piano on ‘Rag Mama Rag’ crashes through the song, adding a layer of just straight country fun. Those all-important Lowrey organ chords padding out half the songs on the album. ‘”Music From Big Pink” and “The Band” would become pivotal moments of the American music timeline. 1975 saw the release of “Northern Lights – Southern Cross”, the Band’s sixth studio album recorded on a 24-track tape recorder, giving Hudson the creative freedom to layer his keyboard work throughout. His woodwind and brass work only adds a further layer to the melody-focused roots-folk-country-rock album, this time recorded in California.

The Band ended their iconic run with The Last Waltz, a legendary night of music that was captured by Martin Scorsese in 1976, featuring Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young among other artists of the time. It marked a closing on the group that had changed rock and roll, shaping the genre into something entirely unique. No other group quite matched The Band, Hudson’s influence kept their sound sitting on a slightly higher shelf than their contemporaries. A lasting moment of the night being Hudson’s spotlight moment with a sax solo towards the end of ‘It Makes No Difference’ , Robertson and Hudson conversing on complete shattering heartbreak in a language of their own.

Beyond their musicality, the group had a kind of easy-going brotherhood, enviable to listeners and fellow musicians, and Hudson, an ever-unreadable figure of calm being the glue that held them together. The Band was an intricate work of architecture, they fit together flawlessly, their recordings intertwining each musician in a way that makes it difficult to determine exactly who a sound is coming from. There was no hierarchy in the music of The Band, it worked from bottom-up, from top-down and from each side to mix in the middle; each instrument, each chord, each harmony was as important as the next. Even after the arguments and disagreements that led to their breakup, feuds that Hudson stayed out of, the brotherhood remained on a steady pedestal of admirable friendship. Putting ‘The Band’ on the record player leaves all those moments of downfall behind, offering an instant return to an on-stage and on-record relationship of sheer understanding.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, Hudson continued his musical work into the next decade. Releasing his first solo album, “The Sea to the North” in 2001. In 2002, he became a somewhat honorary Burrito Brother in the quasi-reunion version of the country-rock icons, Burrito Deluxe. He was in high demand as a session musician, performing and recording with countless artists in and around the Americana world. A final, very recent public appearance in 2023 saw Hudson sitting at the piano playing Duke Ellington’s ‘Sophisticated Lady’, with not an ounce of musical talent lost to years gone by.

Hudson was more than just a musician, his skill went beyond playing and moved into an understanding of instrumentation itself, one that just wouldn’t have clicked in other peoples’ minds. He had a way of discovering sounds and feelings in instruments that weren’t obvious, he was an inventor of music. Hudson will be remembered as a quiet-spoken, mystical, mysterious, magical man. In interviews, he never willingly stepped into the spotlight yet on stage he played with a kind of perfectly controlled mania, demanding attention and always deserving it. He lived on another planet, in another realm perhaps. One where music was language entirely, and so that’s how he communicated in his time on Earth.

Somewhere, The Band is getting back together right now. Maybe they’re in the Big Pink. Or maybe they’ve found another blessed basement. Honey Boy Hudson’s probably sweetening up a recording right now though.

About Daisy Innes 3 Articles
British lover of country, americana and classic American rock music, current American Studies undergrad student - big Springsteen fan.
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Keith Hargreaves

Wonderful obituary.

Andy Trott

A lovely obituary/tribute Daisy. I have tears in my eyes.

Rick Bayles

A fitting tribute to a truly remarkable musician. A pleasure to read.

Michael Macy

Daisy, Thanks so much for a beautiful tribute and recounting of a legendary career. You’ve done Garth proud.

Mark McCall

What a beautiful piece of writing. Shame Garth didn’t get to read it. NLSC on the turntable tonight, a cracking record