His high forehead and long, bushy beard, suggestive of a country preacher or a backwoods boffin, offered an early sign that Garth Hudson, who has died aged 87, was bringing something different to the world of rock music in the 1960s. As the organist with the Hawks, who backed Bob Dylan on a famous series of concerts before turning into the Band, he looked and sounded like a figure from a different age, or perhaps one in whom many ages and cultures were being magically combined.
Music from Big Pink, the Band’s widely influential first album, released in 1968, bore witness to a process to which each of the five musicians – four Canadians and an American – made a distinctive and equal contribution. Levon Helm, the drummer, awakened memories of the old South. Robbie Robertson played guitar with a rare and pointed economy. Rick Danko, the bassist, evoked the intimacy of backporch music-making. Richard Manuel, the pianist, sang with an aching fragility. And Hudson, an enigmatic figure half-hidden behind his organ console, brought the sound of mystery.
