Multi-instrumentalist, member of The Band Garth Hudson dies at 87

Original Publication Date January 21, 2025 - 9:16 AM

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.

Hudson 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 'n' roll world" and a master at crafting musical textures that elevated 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 songwriter and 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 was born to musician parents in Windsor, Ont., and classically trained. He gravitated to piano, synthesizers, horns and his favorite instrument, the Lowrey organ.

His phenomenal career began in the late 1950s when he started performing with Paul London and The Capers. He went on to support rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins as part of The Hawks, playing organ, saxophone and keys.

That group became known as the Band after they backed Bob Dylan on a 1965-66 tour that marked the folk hero's shift into rock, in part because people around Dylan referred to his backing musicians as “the band.”

Alongside fellow Canadian guitarist Robertson, Arkansan drummer-singer Levon Helm, bassist-singer-songwriter Rick Danko, and keyboardist-singer-songwriter Richard Manuel, Hudson went on to help craft a rootsy melange that spawned a new soundtrack for America, fuelled by '60s and '70s hits including "The Weight" and "Up on Cripple Creek."

Hudson had been the last surviving original member of the group. Robertson died in 2023, Manuel died by suicide in 1986, Danko died in his sleep in 1999 and Helm, who had cancer, died in 2012. The Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

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.

— With files from The Associated Press