You might consider Garth Hudson The Band’s silent member. After all, you won’t find too many interviews with the multi-instrumentalist. In The Last Waltz, he offers a couple quotes, but mostly sits by amiably in the interview sections while the others do the talking. But once the music starts to play, it’s impossible to ignore his contributions, which always seem to be just what each song needs.
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Throughout The Band’s catalog, you’ll find innumerable moments where Hudson’s playing, on a variety of different instruments, is essential. Here are five to give you the idea.
1. ”It Makes No Difference” (from the album Northern Lights – Southern Cross, 1975)
Northern Lights – Southern Cross, The Band’s last proper album with their original five-man unit, features many moments where Hudson rose to the occasion. On this towering ballad, sung to soul-baring perfection by bassist Rick Danko, Garth takes over on saxophone late in the song.
After Danko has wrung out the contents of his heart for the final time, he leaves it to Hudson on sax and Robbie Robertson on guitar to close the deal. It’s a fascinating duet that mirrors the emotions roiling inside the narrator as he bemoans his unrequited love. Hudson’s playing evokes soulful resignation, the feeling that continuing to moan about a situation beyond one’s control is useless. By contrast, Robertson pours it all out there with his tortured licks, the unrestrained id to Hudson’s controlled ego.
2. ”When I Paint My Masterpiece” (from the album Cahoots, 1971)
The general consensus is that The Band ran out of steam somewhat on their fourth album, Cahoots—which is kind of understandable considering how brilliant the first three were. But they stepped up on “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” in large part because of what Hudson brings to the table.
The song was written by the group’s old buddy Bob Dylan, as he imagined a kind of nightmarish overseas travelogue where anything that can go wrong, does. Drummer Levon Helm comes through with the right bits of homesickness and humor in the vocal, but it’s Hudson’s brilliant accordion work that conjures the romance of “the continent” in such a way that you can understand why this guy might have been seduced to make the trip in the first place.
3. “All La Glory” (from the album Stage Fright, 1970)
One of the great misjudgments about The Band’s catalog is that the first two albums are masterpieces and everything falls off after that. That severely underrates the aforementioned Northern Lights -Southern Cross, the covers record Moondog Matinee, and, perhaps most of all, the wonderful Stage Fright. Their third album maybe doesn’t demand attention in quite the same way as its predecessors, but its restrained, subtle pleasures are undeniable.
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Case in point: “All La Glory,” a lullaby sweetly sung by Helm. What puts it across are the pillowy keyboards provided by Hudson. He takes over with a mesmerizing solo in between verses that, if you’re not careful, might lull you into the most melodic slumber you’ve ever experienced.
4. “Chest Fever” (from Music from Big Pink, 1968)
As we mentioned above, Hudson was rarely the type to step into the spotlight with his playing, instead preferring to sit back and add just-right elements that enhance the whole. But then there’s “Chest Fever,” a track where The Band just found a groove and ran with it—and the groove was kicked into high gear by Hudson’s magisterial organ work.
The studio version is fantastic, but it’s just a bite-size morsel. If you want the whole meal, check out the elongated version of the song The Band played live, a version which would generally include a solo instrumental called “The Genetic Method” that features Hudson coming up with spectacular improvisations on the keyboards. If you can find videos of these performances (there’s a brief clip of it in The Last Waltz), you’ll see Hudson looking practically possessed with one hand on each level of the organ, his hair flailing wildly. It’s as good as it gets when it comes to rock instrumental genius.
5. “Lonesome Suzie” (from Music from Big Pink, 1968)
Although he didn’t write too many songs in his career, Richard Manuel, a pianist and one of The Band’s three stellar lead vocalists, tended to deliver something special when he did pen a song. “Lonesome Suzie” is one of those tracks, a telling portrait of an isolated girl who transfixes the narrator, in part because he seems to be lonely himself.
To convey those feelings musically, The Band turned in a gentle performance, with the rhythm section hardly a wisp and Robertson filling in with some tender but subdued licks. They rely on Hudson, then, to carry the load, which he does with some ethereal Lowrey organ and sorrowful saxophone. Combine those elements with Manuel’s aching vocal, and it’s a luscious heartbreaker of a track.
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