Garth Hudson RIP

It was sad today to hear that Garth Hudson passed away at the age of 87 and that he was the longest surviving member of The Band. I saw them in concert four times between 1969-74 and then again later on in 1994 Becky and I saw The Band minus Robbie Robertson along with Blue Rodeo and some other Canadian bands and a Canadian Invasion concert down at Griffis Sculpture Park in Ashford Hollow.

I remember an interesting story about Garth Hudson from a biography of The Band I read many years ago. When he joined Levon & The Hawks the condition was that he was paid extra to give music lessons to the other members of the band. This was to satisfy the his musician parents for his moving to the US to be in a band. He was several years older than the rest of the band members.

Of course in 1965 they hooked up with Bob Dylan and the rest is history. Although he was an amazing accomplished multi-instrumentalist in particular with keyboards, accordian and saxophone and other instruments but I really loved when he played the organ.