Garth Hudson, the band's keyboardist and all-around musician, draws inspiration from his unique sound and style, adding dialogue to rock standards like "Up on Cripple Creek," "The Weight" and "Rag Mama Rag." Died at the age of 87.

Hudson is the oldest and last surviving member of the influential group that once supported Bob Dylan. Canadian media confirmed Hudson's death on Tuesday, citing his friend Jane Horst. Further details were not immediately available. Hudson has been living in a nursing home in upstate New York.

An earthy figure with a broad forehead and a sparse beard, Hudson is a classically trained performer and self-taught Greek chorister who sings his way through piano, synthesizer, French horn and his favorite, Laurie The organ performs. No matter the song, Hudson evokes just the right feeling or shade, whether it's the drunken harpsichord and wah-wah pedal on "Up on Cripple Creek," the galloping piano on "Rag Mama Rag," or "It Makes No Difference." "Melancholy Saxophone".

The only non-singer among five musicians known for their camaraderie, texture and versatility, Hudson mostly appears in the background, but he does have one showcase: "Breast Heat," a Robbie Robertson production, He devised an introductory organ solo for the track ("Hereditary Method"), an eclectic sample of moods and melodies that segues into the song's hard rock riff.

Robertson, the band's guitarist and lead singer, died in 2023 after a long illness. Keyboardist and drummer Richard Manuel hanged himself in 1986, bassist Rick Danko died in his sleep in 1999, and drummer Levon Helm died of cancer in 2012. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Formed in the early 1960s as a backing group for rocker Ronnie Hawkins, the band was originally called The Hawks and included Helm, who was born in Arkansas, and four Canadians recruited by Helm and Hawkins: Hudson , Danko, Manuel and Robertson.

The band mastered their craft through years of performing in obscurity - first behind Hawkins, then with Levine and the Eagles, and then as Unsuspecting Fury after hooking up with Dylan in the mid-1960s Target. All joined Dylan on his historic tour of 1965-66 (Helm left midway through), when Dylan broke with his folk music past and collaborated with the band to create some of the most exciting and storming music of the era, Angered some of Dylan's old admirers but attracted many new ones. The band renamed themselves "The Band", in part because many people around Dylan simply referred to his backing musicians as "the Band."

By 1967, Dylan was in semi-reclusion, after allegedly breaking his neck in a motorcycle accident, and he and the band settled in the artists' community of Woodstock, where two years later, due to the music of nearby Bethel Festival, the community will become world-famous. With no album planned, they wrote and played spontaneously in an old pink house outside the city that Hudson, Danko and Manuel shared. With Hudson in charge of the tape machine, Dylan and the band recorded more than 100 songs that over the years were only available in bootleg form, which became known as the "basement tapes." This music is often considered the basis of "roots" music and "American music," ranging from old folk, country, and Appalachian songs to songs such as "Tears of Anger," "I Will Be Released" and "This Wheel Is on Fire "And other new works. "

"There is an informal discussion before each recording," Hudson told online publication Something Else! 2014. "There will be ideas floating around and stories being told. Then we'll go back to the songs.

"We look for words, phrases and situations that are worth writing about. I think Bob Dylan showed us discipline, and an everlasting focus on the quality of his art."

Dylan re-emerged in late 1967 with the austere "John Wesley Harding," and the band debuted soon after with "Music from Big Pink," which combined its austere sound with the riffs and psychedelic techniques popular at the time. Extremely different, and that goes for artists from The Beatles to The Beatles. Eric Clapton of the Grateful Dead would cite its influence. The band followed up with a self-titled album in 1969, which many still consider to be their best and is often cited as one of the greatest rock albums of all time.

Future recordings included Stage Fright, Conspirators and Northern Lights/Southern Cross, the 1975 album for which Hudson's keyboard playing received particular praise. After a year, Robertson decided he was tired of performing live, and the band played all-star concerts and the Martin Scorsese film The Last Waltz, featuring Dylan, Clapton, Neil Young and many others Starring. There were tensions between Robertson and Helm, who accused the film of overly elevating Robertson's stature, leading to a full breakup before the documentary was released in 1978.

Hudson briefly performed with the British band The Call. Appeared with various later versions of the band, usually consisting of Danko, Hudson and Helm; assisted Robertson and Danko on solo albums; and performed with Danko and Helm at the Berlin Wall on Pink Floyd's " The Wall". Other session credits include recordings by Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen and Emmylou Harris.

Hudson also organized his own projects, although his first solo work, "Northern Sea," came out on the day of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In 2005, he formed a 12-piece band called "The Best!" with his wife as the lead singer. "Garth Hudson Presents: A Canadian Celebration of The Band" is a 2010 tribute event starring Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn and other Canadian musicians.

In recent years, Hudson has struggled financially. He sold his interest in the band to Robertson and went bankrupt several times. In 2013, he lost a home after failing to pay storage fees and saw many of his possessions auctioned off. Hudson's wife, Maud, died in 2022. They have a daughter, Tami Zoe Hill.

The son of a musician, Hudson was born in Windsor, Ontario, in 1937 and received formal training from an early age. He began performing and writing on stage as a teenager, although by his early 20s he had grown tired of classical music and played in the rock band Capers.

He was the last to join the band and worried his parents would disapprove. The solution was for Hawkins to hire him as a "musical consultant" and pay him an extra $10 a week.

"It's a job," Hudson said of the band in a 2002 interview with Maclean's magazine. "Play a stadium, play a theatre. My job is to provide the cushions underneath, the cushions behind the good poets and the arrangement of the fillers. The same poem every night."