Garth Hudson | Take It Easy

Sadly, it is time for me to pay my respects to another of my favourite musicians, who has recently left us. Garth Hudson, the last surviving member of The Band, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 87.

Eric Garth Hudson was a Canadian multi-instrumentalist best known as the keyboardist and occasional saxophonist for The Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He was a principal architect of the group’s sound and was described as “the most brilliant organist in the rock world” by Keyboard magazine. He was a master of the Lowrey organ and also played piano, accordion, electronic keyboards, and saxophones. He was a much-in-demand and respected session musician, performing with dozens of artists, including Elton John, who has cited him as an early influence. It seems that he was always set to be a musician, as his parents both played a range of instruments and his mother was a music teacher.

After playing in local bands Garth was persuaded to join The Hawks, the backing band for Ronnie Hawkins, in December 1961.He agreed to join on two conditions: that Hawkins buy him a Lowrey organ, and that he be paid an extra $10 a week by each of the other band members to give them music lessons. This second condition was in part to justify the move to his parents, who he feared would think he was squandering his years of music education by playing in a rock and roll band. The Hawks already consisted of 21-year-old Levon Helm (drums), and 18-year-olds Robbie Robertson (guitar), Rick Danko (bass) and Richard Manuel (piano). Garth was 24, and completed the lineup that would become The Band.

After The Hawks split from Ronnie Hawkins in 1963 they spent a couple of years playing as Bob Dylan’s backing band before branching out on their own. With Dylan they made the informal 1967 recordings that became The Basement Tapes, which were the basis for their July 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink. Because they were always referred to simply as “the band” to various frontmen and the locals in Woodstock, where they were based, Levon Helm said the name “The Band” worked well when the group came into its own so it kind of stuck.

As I do on these occasions I’m playing you a few songs to share the memories of Garth as a musician. With a keyboard player this isn’t as easy as it might be for a lead singer or guitarist, but I hope that these will show Garth at his best. For me, the obvious place to start is with that debut album, which I bought when it first came out and loved. The intro to this track is a real standout:

I could have gone with a live performance of the song but I think that studio version is majestic, so that’s the one for me.

Garth isn’t as prominent in this next clip, but it is nevertheless a great live performance from 1970 of another of the tracks on that album, which also appeared on The Basement Tapes:

This next one is from their second album, simply titled The Band, which was released in September 1969. This was a promo performance from 2 November 1969 on the Ed Sullivan Show; take a look at how much joy there is in Garth’s face around the 1’40” mark:

Garth was rarely credited as a songwriter, but he shared a joint credit for the title track of the Islands album, released in March 1977 and the final studio album by the original lineup. It is an instrumental that opens the album’s second side, and it is rather nice:

Amongst the plethora of musicians on the Islands recording, Garth somehow managed to play the piccolo as well as his Lowrey organ – talented guy!

After completing their contract with Capitol Records The Band moved to Warner Bros. to release their parting album, the triple live set The Last Waltz, which came out in April 1978 together with the movie version of the show, directed by Martin Scorsese. This featured many guest appearances, including one by the guy who brought them together in the first place. Although Garth isn’t to the forefront in this you can still hear his Lowrey underpinning everything, as it always did. This is Ronnie Hawkins with Who Do You Love:

I guess I should include what is probably The Band’s signature song, even though Garth isn’t that prominent in this clip. It is the performance of The Weight from The Last Waltz, with a guest appearance by The Staples Singers, and it is superb:

To the best of my knowledge, Garth only ever sang on one Band song – Young Blood, which was a bonus track on non-American versions of their High On The Hog album, released in February 1996. The song was a cover of a track originally recorded by the Coasters in 1957. I can only find one version of it on YouTube, but here it is. Garth sings!

After The Band went on hiatus a couple of times they reformed and made one final album, Jubilation, which was released in September 1998. Its closing track is French Girls, which is a lovely solo instrumental by Garth, and it feels like a very fitting way to close this reminiscence of a great musician: