Garth Hudson, The Band's quirky and beloved musical jackknife, dead at 87

Garth Hudson, the multi-instrumentalist wizard of The Band, the first Canadian group inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, has died. He was 87.

Hudson's death was confirmed by his friend, Jan Haust, to The Canadian Press, as well as by a post from The Band's Facebook page. According to social media posts related to the group, he had resided in an assisted living facility in New York state in recent years.

He was the last of the five members who would comprise The Band to join, entering the picture in their formative years as the group backed the Canadian bar-hopping outfit of Arkansas-born showman Ronnie Hawkins.

Leaving Hawkins for greener pastures in the United States, they would eventually back Bob Dylan on a raucous 1966 world tour — when they were called The Hawks — before launching their own recording career in 1968.

Hudson was the only one of the quintet who was classically trained. As told in subsequent years by Hawkins and The Band guitarist Robbie Robertson, who died in 2023, Hudson's conservative parents had to be persuaded to let their son became a road musician.

The other musicians were undoubtedly glad his folks acquiesced, as over the course of The Band's recording career, Hudson was the group's musical jackknife, playing accordion, clavinet, piccolo, saxophone, melodica, piano and synthesizer.

Above all, Hudson was known for the sounds he coaxed from his Lowrey organ — from sentimental and wistful, to eerie and foreboding, to playful and circus-like. He was nicknamed "Honey Boy," drummer Levon Helm wrote in his 1993 memoir This Wheel's On Fire, for his ability to sweeten the band's recordings.

"With Garth and that organ, we sounded like a rock-and-roll orchestra," Helm wrote. "We felt so enriched it was ungodly. He had sounds no one else had."

The group's first two albums — Music From Big Pink and The Band — are considered classics, each ranking in the top 100 of Rolling Stone's updated compilation of the top 500 albums of all time in 2023.

The Band reached the top 40 charts with songs Up on Cripple Creek and Don't Do It, with The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and The Weight inspiring several cover versions.

The Band were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, five years after receiving induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the Juno Awards.

Hudson was known as the quietest member of The Band, though he escaped the ravages of drug use that afflicted three of his bandmates.

He was also quirky — bandmates later recounted how at their communal "Big Pink" house in Woodstock, N.Y., he wouldn't let others wash the dishes. Onstage, he often played shoeless, with a highlight of the band's concerts his otherworldly intro to Chest Fever, inspired by Bach.

"He could've been playing with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra or Miles Davis, but he was with us and we were lucky to have him," Robertson wrote in his 2016 book, Testimony.