Final Living Member of The Band, Garth Hudson, Has Died

News 25 Comments


From country to Americana, to folk and classic rock, from Canada to the United States and around the world, everybody knows and loves The Band, and their influence and appeal is stratified across genres and continents. And now, the final original member of one of the most influential bands in North American music history has passed away.

Most everyone knows about the legacy of Levon Helm—The Band’s drummer and often lead singer who passed away in 2012. Most also know about Robbie Robertson, the band’s lead guitar player and primary songwriter who left us in 2023. Piano player and singer Richard Manuel died in 1986, and bassist Rick Danko passed away in 1999. Meanwhile, Garth Hudson was the member of The Band who was commonly and criminally overlooked when it came to the Canadian group’s legacy, despite his signature bushy beard.

Those cool frog croaking sounds you hear on the band’s iconic “Up On Cripple Creek”? That was Garth Hudson playing a clavinet through a wah-wah pedal. The mournful sax moans on “Tears of Rage”? That was Garth’s work too. All the brass and woodwinds you hear on the iconic “Ophelia”? That was all Garth Hudson. He could play just about everything, and did. He gave the sound of The Band that unique and eclectic flavor, and omnivorous aspect.

Born in Windsor, Canada, both of Garth Hudson’s parents were musicians as well, and he was classically trained from an early age on multiple instruments. Young Garth played organ at the local church and at his uncle’s funeral parlor. By the age of 12 he was performing professionally. After attending the University of Western Ontario, Hudson joined a band called The Silhouettes, which morphed into a band called Paul London and the Kapers.

It was at a Kapers show in 1961 that Ronnie Hawkins and Levon Helm approached Garth Hudson to join The Hawks band backing up the rockabilly legend, but Hudson refused. Considering himself too good to join a rag tag rock n’ roll band and worried what his parents would think, Hudson held out for six months as Ronnie and Levon continued to nag him.

Hudson finally agreed to become a Hawk under a few conditions: they had to buy him a Lowrey Organ as opposed to the standard Hammond models that were mostly used at the time, and they had to pay him $10 extra a week to give the rest of the band members weekly music lessons.

Of course from there what became known as The Band reconfigured the future of music in North America, backing Bob Dylan in the Blonde on Blonde era, including the notorious “electric” tour in 1966 when Dylan eschewed his acoustic folk past, and into 1968 when The Band recorded their first album Music From Big Pink.


Garth Hudson remained a full time member of the group all the way through to their final concert, memorialized on Thanksgiving Day, 1976 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco by Martin Scorsese in the film The Last Waltz.

Later iterations of the band minus Robbie Robertson also included Garth Hudson in the lineup. Hudson later had a solo career, though it started off somewhat unfortunately since he released his first solo album called The Sea to The North on September 11th, 2001.

Hudson later created a reboot of the Flying Burrito Brothers with pedal steel player “Sneaky Pete” Kleinow called Burrito Deluxe, and worked as an in-demand session musician for many years. In 2010, Hudson helped assemble a tribute to The Band compiled solely of Canadian artists with Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, The Cowboy Junkies, The Sadies, and more participating.

Through his work with The Band, Garth Hudson became a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Juno’s Canadian Hall of Fame, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner in 2008.

Garth Hudson had been living in a nursing home in Upstate New York for the last few years. He passed away on Tuesday, January 21st at the age of 87.

© 2025 Saving Country Music

, , , , , , ,