The Canadian virtuoso, known for his solo on “Chest Fever,” gave the group a “sound twice as big” and his mates music lessons.

Hudson died early Tuesday in a nursing home near Woodstock, New York, his former manager, Jim Della Croce, confirmed to USA TODAY. Della Croce remembered the late musician as a "brilliant man" and the "glue that made The Band, The Band."

Garth Hudson, the organist and multi-instrumentalist whose wizardry enhanced some of the best-known songs of 1960s and '70s rock group the Band including "Up on Cripple Creek," "Chest Fever" and "Ophelia,