Garth Hudson in his element, a complete genius. Remembering him on his birthday.
Garth Hudson
Remembering Garth 'Honey Boy' Hudson
August 2, 1937 - January 21, 2025
The Band's musical maestro has enchanted us with his sounds for decades. He was honored into the Rock and Roll of Fame in 1994.
“If you can’t write your song in half an hour, you’re in trouble - which is always true”.
Garth Hudson
GARTH HUDSON
Eric Garth Hudson CM (August 2, 1937 - January 21, 2025) was a Canadian multi-instrumentalist best known as the keyboardist and occasional saxophonist for the rock group 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. Hudson was the last living original member of the Band.
A master of the Lowrey organ, Hudson's other primary instruments were piano, accordion, electronic keyboards, and saxophones (alto, tenor, soprano, baritone, bass).[3] 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. (Wikipedia)
Garth Hudson - The Sea To The North [2001] It wasn't too hard to guess that Garth Hudson's long-awaited solo album would be a tour de force; his virtuoso instrumental talents stood out even in that legendary group of musicians known as the Band. What may surprise listeners, however, is the sheer scope of sound on this effort, with Hudson playing an intimidating range of keyboards (including pipe organ), various saxophones, accordion, melodica, and Tarogato. Each track is a sonic adventure, the hapless listener unsure of what lies around the next bend. Several centuries of music and continents seem embedded in the elegiac title track ("composition" is a better word for music of this scope), while "The Saga of Cyrus and Mulgrew" is boldly futuristic. Later years found the erstwhile members of the Band occasionally digging into the Grateful Dead's catalog, and Hudson is no exception, doing a free jazzy take on "Dark Star" on which he even offers some spoken vocals. Members of that sterling Woodstock, NY, band the Crowmatix show up here, with prominent appearances by group leader Professor "Louie" (aka Aaron Hurwitz), who co-produces. Hudson's old bandmate Levon Helm shows up as well. This is startlingly spontaneous music with a brain (a very big brain), and it's not for the faint of heart or the average pop fan. And that's a great thing. (AllMusic review by Erik Hage)
Garth Hudson - Our Lady Queen Of The Angels (A Celebrational Environment by Tony Duquette) [1980] In 1980, Garth Hudson was involved in a project with sculptor Tony Duquette, at the Los Angeles Museum of Science and Industry. The music that Garth wrote and played for this exhibition was recorded, and Garth released it on tape under the title Our Lady Queen of the Angels (subtitled "A Celebrational Environment by Tony Duquette") on his own label Buscador Music as EGH (Eric Garth Hudson) 770.Garth does some beautiful, haunting keyboard work. Some of it is shear wizardry in sound effects, considering the computer and synth technology available at the time of the recording. A few of the sounds on Our Lady Queen of the Angels are not instruments, but Maud Hudson and Richard and Arlie Manuel "singing" to sound like instruments, along with a variety of Californian Wren calls with stream-side and pool-side frogs recorded by Hudson himself in Malibu. In the middle of it, Charlton Heston reads a poem to Los Angeles written by Ray Bradbury.
According to the Duquette Foundation of the Living Arts, the cassette tapes are no longer available, due to a tragic fire in 1989.
Our Lady... was finally released on CD by the Canadian Other Peoples Music label in November 2005. The CD follows the original cassette-only sequence and was restored and remastered from the original 1980 recordings. (Discogs)
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Garth Hudson performs a synthesized “Greensleeves” The Last Waltz, November 25, 1976.
RIP Garth
Garth Hudson, whose intricate swirls of Lowrey organ helped elevate the Band from rollicking juke-joint refugees into one of the most resonant and influential rock groups of the 1960s and ’70s, died on Tuesday in Woodstock, N.Y. He was 87 and the last surviving original member of the group.One of the most inventive keyboardists in the history of rock & roll, Hudson was born in London, Ontario, on Aug. 3, 1937 — years before his fellow Band members — to a pair of gifted musicians: His mother was a pianist, and his father played a variety of wind instruments, though he was employed as a farm inspector and entomologist.Hudson was a prodigy who once disassembled his father’s old pump organ and rebuilt it. He was playing accordion in a country band at age 12; his parents sent him to the Toronto Conservatory, where he learned to play Bach preludes; at an uncle’s funeral parlor, he played Anglican hymns. (“The Anglican church has the best musical traditions of any church that I know of,” he told author Barney Hoskyns in the Band biography Across the Great Divide.)With his reserved manner and technical skills, he lent the group a gravitas that set it apart from peers during the Summer of Love. The freewheeling sessions with Dylan at Big Pink — remarkably well-recorded by Hudson using an Uher reel-to-reel tape recorder — would eventually be documented on The Basement Tapes, with Hudson supplying buoyant accompaniment on “This Wheel’s on Fire” and “Million Dollar Bash,” among other standouts.- Rolling Stone
The unique, renaissance man, multi -instrumentalist, at once a maverick magician and yet quiet voiced stoic steadfast still centre of the Band has passed away at his nursing home in Woodstock NY aged 87.
recent posting from The Reconstructor - Bob and The Band at Big Pink
Garth Hudson, whose intricate swirls of Lowrey organ helped elevate the Band from rollicking juke-joint refugees into one of the most resonant and influential rock groups of the 1960s and ’70s, died on Tuesday in Woodstock, N.Y. He was 87 and the last surviving original member of the group.
One of the most inventive keyboardists in the history of rock & roll, Hudson was born in London, Ontario, on Aug. 3, 1937 — years before his fellow Band members — to a pair of gifted musicians: His mother was a pianist, and his father played a variety of wind instruments, though he was employed as a farm inspector and entomologist.
Hudson was a prodigy who once disassembled his father’s old pump organ and rebuilt it. He was playing accordion in a country band at age 12; his parents sent him to the Toronto Conservatory, where he learned to play Bach preludes; at an uncle’s funeral parlor, he played Anglican hymns. (“The Anglican church has the best musical traditions of any church that I know of,” he told author Barney Hoskyns in the Band biography Across the Great Divide.)
With his reserved manner and technical skills, he lent the group a gravitas that set it apart from peers during the Summer of Love. The freewheeling sessions with Dylan at Big Pink — remarkably well-recorded by Hudson using an Uher reel-to-reel tape recorder — would eventually be documented on The Basement Tapes, with Hudson supplying buoyant accompaniment on “This Wheel’s on Fire” and “Million Dollar Bash,” among other standouts.
The Genetic Method / Chest Fever - The Band - The Last Waltz
- Rolling Stone