Garth Hudson

[BiggDick]

dang.

RIP.

Last surviving member of The Band.

[Shirley]

Much more than merely a keyboardist and vocalist:

Hudson provided innovative accompaniment. For example, the 1970 song "Up on Cripple Creek" features Hudson playing a clavinet through a wah-wah pedal to create a swampy sound reminiscent of a Jew's harp or the croak of a frog. This clavinet–wah wah pedal configuration was later adopted by many funk musicians...

I always wondered if that was a Jew's harp, except...



Damn, keyboards, brass, woodwinds,

...His saxophone solo work can be heard on such songs as "Tears of Rage" (from Big Pink) and "Unfaithful Servant" (from The Band). Hudson is credited with playing all of the brass and woodwinds on the studio version of "Ophelia" from the 1975 album Northern Lights - Southern Cross.[14] This album, the first to be recorded in the Band's Shangri-La recording studio in Malibu, California, also saw Hudson adding synthesizers to his arsenal of instruments.

[BiggDick]

There's some story about how he was a musical genius, a master of classical and other styles, enough so to school pretty much anyone about pretty much anything musical.

His family was some sorta conservative religious type, and would not have approved of him being in a rock-n-roll band.

So, in the early days of The Band, he made the other members pay him some nominal fee, like $5 a week or something, so he could honestly tell his mom he was actually there to give them piano lessons.

[Shirley]

There's some story about how he was a musical genius, a master of classical and other styles, enough so to school pretty much anyone about pretty much anything musical.

His family was some sorta conservative religious type, and would not have approved of him being in a rock-n-roll band.

So, in the early days of The Band, he made the other members pay him some nominal fee, like $5 a week or something, so he could honestly tell his mom he was actually there to give them piano lessons.

That's a great story!