Garth and Me

I've come to accept the fact that occasional thoughts of mortality and being introspective can go hand and hand. Fair warning to readers temperamentally inclined to equate random thoughts of mortality with morbidity: Skip the next three paragraphs. (BTW, same warning applies to those uninterested in bands from the 60s.) 

Upon learning of the recent passing of Garth Hudson - longstanding organist with The Band - it was hard for me to escape a temporary reflection on mortality. Hudson's death triggered this introspective blogger and musician who came of age in the 60s to muse - briefly - on an inescapable reality. 

Garth was the last surviving member of The Band, and though I didn't double/triple check - now that would be morbid - no other seminal, highly influential band that came to prominence in the 60s has yet to lose every founding member. Here's a quick, woefully incomplete, alphabetical list of those bands, i.e., groups in which members played their own instruments, that have at least one founding member alive: The Animals, Beach Boys, Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, Byrds, Chicago, Kinks, Rolling Stones, Santana, Who, Yardbirds. Don't quibble about who I left out or bother mentioning that the Four Tops lost their last surviving founding member last year. First, the Tops didn't play their own instruments. Second, it's beside the point anyway. 

Garth Hudson's passing - at the robust age of eighty-seven, BTW - gives me slight pause. I still have plenty of musical heroes left from the 60s. And an ever-increasingly small number of them still make some good music from time to time. But for me - and all of them - Act Three continues apace, which, of course, is preferable to the alternative. RIP, Garth - you had an impact on my musical life.