Garth Hudson death: Last remaining member of The Band dies aged 87
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Hudson was a talented multi-instrumentalist best known for playing keyboards and saxophone for The Band. Garth Hudson, the wildly talented multi-instrumentalist best known for playing keyboards and saxophone for The Band, has died. He was 87. He died just a short distance from the pink house in West Saugerties that became famous as the venue where Bob Dylan and The Band recorded The Basement Tapes and where The Band wrote their seminal debut album Music From Big Pink.
![[Hudson in Los Angeles in 2008]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/21/15/79685647.jpg)
Hudson was born in Windsor, Ontario in Canada on August 2, 1937. He started playing piano from a young age, and was classically trained in music theory, harmony and counterpoint. In 1956, at the age of 19, he joined the Silhouettes from London, Ontario as a saxophonist. During his five years in the group he also played organ, after becoming fascinated with the sound produced by a Lowrey Organ.
Hudson’s musicianship brought him to the attention of rock’n’roll singer Ronnie Hawkins, whose backing band The Hawks would later evolve into The Band. In 1961, Hudson agreed to join the Hawks on the condition that they buy him a Lowrey Organ, and that they pay him $10 extra to give music lessons to the other members of the band.
The Hawks split with Hawkins in 1963 and toured as Levon and the Hawks until meeting Bob Dylan in 1965. They were recruited by the former folk icon for his controversial “electric” rock’n’roll tour in 1966, the same year they moved as a group to the pink house near Woodstock.
Hudson played his Lowrey organ, clavinet, accordion, tenor saxophone and piano and served as recording engineer when Dylan visited the home to record The Basement Tapes. In 1968 they released Music from Big Pink, officially changing their name to The Band.
