RIP Garth Hudson, "the Spirit and Soul of The Band"

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...on-the-band-tribute-rob-sheffield-1235243245/

FARE THEE WELL
GARTH HUDSON WAS THE SPIRIT AND SOUL OF THE BAND’S MUSICAL BROTHERHOOD
Remembering the virtuoso musician, who was a self-effacing genius and rock's ultimate glue guy

By Rob Sheffield
JANUARY 21, 2025

It’s so fitting that Garth Hudson was the last man standing from the Band. The beloved organ virtuoso died on Tuesday morning at 87, near Woodstock — just a few miles down the road from Big Pink, the house where the Band and Bob Dylan transformed music history just by jamming in the basement. Garth Hudson was the mystery man in the Band, the silent one, the only one who didn’t sing. He was years older than the others, already in his thirties when they made their classic 1968 debut Music From Big Pink. But with his self-effacing genius, he epitomized The Band as a group of whittlers and tinkerers, playing down-home music with a frontier spirit. They were the ultimate rock & roll fantasy of brotherhood, and Garth Hudson was the wise father figure, the glue guy who made that fantasy real.

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Garth Hudson's accordion isolated


Garth Hudson @Big Pink, 2014