RE AL GONE
Rock Of Ages
The last member of The Band, Garth Hudson, left us on January 21. Friends and collaborators remember him as, “genius, eccentric, cool.”
The last waltz: Garth Hudson – “expanding rock’s horizons by broadening its musical base”; (right) I’m with The Band (from left) Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Hudson, Ontario, 1968; (below, right) Hudson with collaborator Grasshopper from Mercury Rev.
Ed Caraeff/Iconic Images, © Elliott Landy/Magnum Photos, Courtesy Grasshopper
IN THE WANING days of the 1960s, Benmont Tench went to see B.B. King at a three-day rock festival at a Miami racetrack. The enthusiastic piano player had turned 16 three months earlier and was just beginning to experiment with the Farfisa organ. When he started to leave his festival seat for a drink that day, a new sound stopped him where he stood: the tone and technique of organist Garth Hudson, during an uncanny performance of The Band’s I Shall Be Released.
“In the second verse, Garth draws up a sound, a swell, and moves between a few chords. It riveted me,” remembers Tench, who joined Tom Petty in Mudcrutch three years later. “The way he plays against the melody, against that miraculous voice of Richard Manuel, it was one of the most moving musical experiences I have had.”