Garth Hudson, a masterful Canadian multi-instrumentalist whose prowess on the organ and roots-rock hits with the Band helped define an era, has died.
The Windsor, Ont. native died early Tuesday morning at age 87 in a nursing home in Woodstock, N.Y., said his decades-long friend and occasional collaborator Jan Haust.
Haust, who had known Hudson for decades but couldn’t visit him in his final days, said the musician died “peacefully in his sleep” after a day of “music and hand-holding” by close friends.
He remembered an intensely private man who was a “gentleman in a rock-and-roll world” and a master at crafting musical textures that enhanced anyone he played with.
“There’s three keyboard players out of Canada from his era. One of course, being Oscar Peterson. And then, of course, Glenn Gould. And then Garth Hudson,” said Haust, reached by phone in Toronto.
“He wove incredible musical tapestries and embellished the words and embellished the songs of not only (Band vocalist) Robbie Robertson, but a whole host of other artists with whom he performed over the years. From Leonard Cohen to Norah Jones to Van Morrison. People invited Garth to come and do whatever he pleased on their records. And he did.”
Hudson’s phenomenal career began in the late 1950s when he started performing with Paul London and The Capers. He rose to prominence when he became a member of the Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks as the group’s organist, saxophonist and keyboardist.
But his legacy and influence was cemented as part of the Band alongside Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel, whose hits in the ‘60s and ‘70s include “The Weight” and “Up on Cripple Creek.” Hudson had been the last surviving original member of the group.
Over the years he’d go on to play with other giants including Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.
Toronto filmmaker Daniel Roher, who met Hudson the winter of 2018 while working on his documentary “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band,” called him “a legend.”
“He was almost like a musical teacher to the other guys in the group. He was a little bit older, had a little bit more experience in a lot of ways and just brought a musicality to the band that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. He was a very important part of their alchemy,” said Roher, reached in Los Angeles.
“He was a very strange and unusual guy, but he was a true artist, passionate about the music and what he created with his brothers in the Band will live on forever.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2025.
