While not everybody knows Nicky Hopkins' name, it would be almost impossible to find a rock and roll fan who hasn't heard his music. As perhaps the most prolific and beloved session keyboardist of the '70s, he played with some of the biggest bands and musicians in history, contributing to such classic hits as the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil," the Who's "My Generation," and "Revolution" by the Beatles (and that's just the very, very tip of the iceberg).
Now, over 30 years after his death at the age of 50 from complications of Crohn's disease, the "unsung piano genius" — who'll be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this month — is finally getting his own documentary, as Flood Magazine reported, thanks to producer John Wood.
“I just thought, ‘How come nobody’s heard of this guy?’” Wood said. “He’s worked with the biggest names in rock, played on some of the most important tracks ever recorded in rock history, and made them sound fantastic, and no one knows his name. I mean, obviously the hardcore fans and musicians know him, but the general public have no idea who’s playing the piano on ‘Angie,’ you know? They don’t even question it. I always felt that was wrong, and I just really wanted to right that wrong.”
View this post on InstagramAvailable to stream on Amazon and Apple TV, The Session Man tells the story of Hopkins' life and career, and features commentary from such musical icons as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Dave Davies, Peter Frampton, Harry Shearer and many others. Hopkins, who began playing piano at the age of three, got his start in rock and roll touring with British shock rocker Screaming Lord Sutch before joining Cyril Davies All-Stars. During his stint with the All-Stars at London’s Marquee Club, Jagger and Richards saw Hopkins play for the first time.
“Mick and I were down at the club to see Cyril, to see what his new band was like,” Richards recalls in The Session Man, “and the piano player, he just blew us away. There’s this little white kid, and he’s sounding like he’s in the back room of somewhere in Mississippi or Chicago…Mick and I just looked at each other like, ‘Whoa, where did Cyril find this guy?’”
“He had a special style, a combination of gospel and classical that I never heard anyone else do,” says Jagger in the film.
Though his unique talents are stamped all over some of the bestselling and most critically-acclaimed albums of all time, his chronic illness often prevented Hopkins from touring.
“It was kind of fortunate, in a horrible way, that he couldn’t tour during that period,” noted Wood. “If he’d been a touring musician, we might not have gotten all these amazing recorded performances.”
In addition to being remembered for his work, Hopkins will forever be known as a "lovely person," according to Wood.
“Everybody loved him as a person, as well as for his music," he said.
Related: John Lennon's Snarky Nickname for The Rolling Stones: 'He Would Get Really Angry'
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