Throwback Thursday: Garth Hudson, The Band

For this week’s Throwback Thursday, we’re celebrating Garth Hudson’s birthday with a set of songs from The Band.

It probably would not be hard to argue that among most circles there’s at least a few members of The Band – Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, and Rick Danko, at least – who are better known than Garth Hudson.  This is a shame, though, because the contributions that Hudson has made to music throughout his career have been incredibly influential and important to how music has sounded over the past several decades.  He’s been called the first of his kind; as a rock ‘n’ roll keyboardist before it was cool, his unique playing quality anticipated much of the development of synthesizers.  He was also the organist and saxophonist for the group, and as such played a huge part in shaping The Band’s sound.

As a highly skilled multi-instrumentalist – even being called a virtuoso for some of them –  he has also been constantly in high demand as a session musician throughout his career.  The list of artists he has performed with would be impossible to include within this allotted space, but suffice to say it is impressive.  Join us at 5pm today to reflect on perhaps the best organist in rock history for Throwback Thursday.

By Bentley Holt

If you liked this, check out:
Throwback Thursday: Queen
This Week in Music History