The last surviving member of the Canadian-American group Band has died.
Garth Hudson was 87 years old.
His death was confirmed by the group’s representatives who said he “passed away peacefully in his sleep” at a nursing home in Woodstock, New York, The Toronto Star reported.
No cause of death was announced, Rolling Stone reported.
A post on the Band’s Instagram account said, “Today, we sadly say goodbye to Garth ‘Honey Boy’ Hudson, the last living original member of The Band. A musical genius and cornerstone of the group’s timeless sound, Garth once said, ‘I found some true enjoyment in helping people get to the bottom of their feelings.’ Through his music, he did just that—helping us all feel more deeply and connect to something greater. Rest easy, Garth.”
Variety called Hudson “the quiet man.”
Hudson came from a musical family. His mother was a pianist and his father, in addition to being a farm inspector and entomologist, played several wind instruments, Rolling Stone reported.
The music magazine called Hudson a prodigy who had one time disassembled his father’s pump organ and then reassembled it. He also played accordion in a country band at the age of 12. He ended up attending the Toronto Conservatory, learning Bach and Anglican hymns, which he played at his uncle’s funeral parlor.
He also loved rock & roll, joining the Capers, playing piano and saxophone, and touring with Johnny Cash and Bill Haley before becoming part of the Hawks, the backup band for singer Ronnie Hawkins, which included Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko.
As the Hawks, the group also performed with Bob Dylan during his first tour in 1966, Variety said.
Hudson was Dylan’s recording engineer for his “basement tapes.” They then became a headliner in their own right as the Band in 1968 with “Music From Big Pink.”
He never sang on the group’s recordings or on stage.
“Play a stadium, play a theater. My job was to provide arrangements with pads underneath, pads and fills behind good poets. Same poems every night,” Hudson told Maclean’s in 2003, according to Variety.
Robertson wrote of Hudson in his 2016 book “Testimony,” “He played brilliantly, in a more complex way than anybody we had ever jammed with. Most of us had just picked up our instruments as kids and plowed ahead, but Garth was classically trained and could find musical avenues on the keyboard we didn’t know existed. It impressed us deeply.”
Between a church organ, accordion, saxophone or clavinet, Hudson put his fingerprint on the Band’s music. He also worked with musicians such as Roger Waters, Leonard Cohen and Tom Petty, The New York Times reported.
The group broke up after releasing their album “Islands” in 1977 and tried to find the spark years later, releasing albums in 1993, 1996 and 1998.
They also were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
Hudson had no immediate family. His wife, Sister Maud Hudson, died in 2022 at the age of 71, the Times reported.
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