Musician Garth Hudson has died at the age of 87, according to the Toronto Star.
He was the last surviving member of the Canadian-American group The Band, though he never contributed vocals.
The Band came to fame with their 1968 debut Music From Big Pink.
They went on to become one of the most popular rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s with hit songs such as The Weight, Atlantic City and Rag Mama Rag.
The Band often worked with iconic singer Bob Dylan.
Following the Band’s celebrated farewell show, The Last Waltz in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976, the act quit in the studio with Islands (1977).
Musician Garth Hudson has died at the age of 87, according to the Toronto Star. Seen in 1979
(L-R) Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Garth in London in June 1971
He was born Eric Garth Hudson in Windsor, Ontario, in 1937. Garth came from a musical family and studied piano at the Toronto Conservatory.
‘I had a good teacher who used older methods and older pieces,’ he said. ‘That’s how I learned to play the Bach preludes and fugues, material like that. I loved Chopin, and Mozart amazed me.
‘But I found I had problems memorizing classical annotated music…so I developed my own method of ear training and realized I could improvise.’
After a year studying music at the University of Western Ontario in London, he dropped out and began to play professionally.
In the late ‘50s, he worked with the regional bands the Silhouettes and Paul London and the Kapers.
His abilities caught the attention of Helm, who lobbied Hawkins to bring him into the Hawks.
He was the last surviving member of the Canadian-American group The Band, though he never contributed vocals
The Band came to fame with their 1968 debut Music From Big Pink; seen in the 1970s
They went on to become one of the most popular rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s with hit songs such as The Weight, Atlantic City and Rag Mama Rag. Seen in 2008
Hudson became the eldest member of a lineup that included Helm, Robertson, Manuel and bassist Rick Danko.
After splitting in 1963 with Hawkins, the group recorded singles as the Canadian Squires and Levon & the Hawks.
They also worked often with Bob Dylan.
Hudson released three solo albums on independent labels.
In 2010, he curated A Canadian Celebration of the Band, a nod to the group featuring such countrymen as Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Cowboy Junkies and Blue Rodeo.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Band in 1994, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 2008.
His wife of 43 years Maud Hudson died in February 2022.
