00:00And on piano, the legendary Nicky Hopkins.
00:04When I first met him, when he was playing with Cyril Davis at the Marquee,
00:09because we were opening for Cyril Davis.
00:11Cyril went off on his own and made his own band,
00:15which was called the Cyril Davis All-Stars.
00:17And this included, amongst some other great players, Nicky Hopkins.
00:22Nicky was not the star, he was the sideman.
00:25His job was to make the records better, not to go,
00:27look, look at me. And I think that as in that role,
00:36he was much more purely and essentially a musician.
00:42Star, he had a special star, which was this combination of gospel and classical
00:46that I never heard anyone else do.
00:49He had this invaluable ability to realize where to start playing in the song.
00:56You don't have to play from the top and where to play in relation to the melody
01:02and just what can break your heart with a few notes up high.
01:08So I'm on piano on most of the rest of that album, which was great.
01:15And of course, John was such a unique character.
01:18I found that John was very into him just being himself anyway and getting things done.
01:24But Nicky's touch, you know, it's just another example of having Nicky Hopkins and a Beatle together.
01:33And I'm in the room with him.
01:35That's just a great, great, it doesn't get any better than that for me, person.
01:40These are people who, you know, worked every day.
01:44This was their job, is to make great music and to make good music better.
01:48And I think Nicky was a prime member of that fraternity.
01:52Nicky was working with George Harrison during the week.
01:56And at weekends, he recorded his own solo album, The Tin Man Was a Dreamer.
02:02Helped, of course, by some of his mates, including George.
02:06Nicky Hopkins was the kind of piano player that you needed if you were going to play, you know, with Art Garfunkel.
02:13Artie knew that and to his credit, you know, he, they made some great music together.
02:21Joe Cocker had been looking for him, wanted to come play on an album.
02:25And as someone else, I can't think who it was now.
02:29But, so we wound up, we went back to L.A.
02:33You know, we had, I think, met with Nicky when we were getting, when we were looking for people to be in the band.
02:45And I think we met with him just to have the thrill of meeting Nicky.
02:49Back in 92, Nicky and I played piano together on a Zero album.
02:56And a Chance in a Million being recorded live.
03:00And a great American musical in San Francisco.
03:04And we just went nuts and started trading licks back and forth in the piano solo.
03:09When I grew up listening to so many different kinds of music that I like a lot of different kinds of music.
03:15And I've learned to play them over the years, too.
03:17I mean, I've become quite involved in many different kinds and different forms of music.
03:22Over a 30-year period, Nicky Hopkins would play on over 250 albums.
