Garth Hudson, the Band’s Last Living Member, Dies at 87

Garth Hudson, the Band‘s genius multi-instrumentalist and careful archivist, has died. He was 87.

The Toronto Star confirmed that he passed away in his sleep this morning at a nursing home in Woodstock, New York. He was the last living member of the Band.

Hudson was born in Windsor, Ontario and raised by a musical family two hours away in London, before Ronnie Hawkins recruited him to join the Hawks, a rockabilly-influenced predecessor to the Band. They later toured with Levon Helm as Levon and the Hawks. Hudson then joined bandmates Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel in backing Bob Dylan as he transitioned from folk to rock. Then the group struck out on their own with a returning Helm.

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Now simply known as the Band, they helped set a template for Americana with albums like Music From Big Pink, The Band and The Basement Tapes, the latter led by Dylan in 1967. Hudson served as curator for those genre-sparking Dylan recordings, later collected in 2014’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete.

The ‘Royal Albert Hall’ Concert, released in 1998, documented Hudson and the Band’s then-controversial 1966 tour with Dylan as he went electric. The group then gathered in a pink house near Woodstock in West Saugerties, New York, to explore their next musical adventures. Bootlegs of the loose sessions pointed to a newfound focus on roots music that played out on their next official studio recordings. The Basement Tapes wouldn’t be officially released until 1975.

By then, Hudson had left an indelible musical stamp on the Band. Classically trained in piano and music theory, Hudson had a canny intuition for accompaniment. He’d take a conventional turn at the piano on favorites like “The Weight” and “Rag Mama Rag,” but also played sax on “Unfaithful Servant,” clavinet on “Up On Cripple Creek” and accordion on Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”

His in-concert showcase found Hudson performing an extended introduction to “Chest Fever” on his signature Lowrey organ that became known as the “Genetic Method.” Hudson played all of the woodwinds and brass on 1975’s deeply underrated Northern Lights-Southern Cross even as he began mastering synthesizers. Hudson played sax and accordion as part of Roger Waters‘ massive 1990 concert performance of Pink Floyd‘s The Wall in Germany at the Berlin Wall.

Hudson worked as a sessions musician following The Last Waltz, which marked the end of the Band’s five-man lineup. Key turns along the way included Van Morrison‘s Wavelength and Leonard Cohen‘s Recent Songs. He also joined in solo sessions with Robertson, Danko and Helm.

The Band then reunited without Robertson for regular tours and a trio of albums beginning with 1993’s Jericho. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Hudson only occasionally recorded as a leader, releasing his first solo album The Sea to the North in 2001. Live at the Wolf, recorded in London, Ontario, followed in 2005. One of his best-received projects found Hudson recruiting and collaborating on old Band material with a series of stars including Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn and Cowboy Junkies for 2010’s Garth Hudson Presents: A Canadian Celebration of the Band.

Manuel died in 1986, Danko in 1999, Helm in 2012 and Robertson in 2023.

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