The Session Man | movie | 2024 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

The story of highly gifted pianist and unsung hero, Nicky Hopkins, who played with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the  | dG1fQUhHd2IyTjVUNmc

Transcript

00:00In the golden age of rock and roll, bands consisted of guitar and drums until they

00:10realized that the piano added harmonic richness and melodic flair. Then along

00:18came the legendary pianist, Nicky Hopkins. Nicky was a rock and roll player and I mean

00:28aside from everything else he could do, he could play rock and roll piano like nobody else.

00:33Seriously enough, it was during that period of doing the marquee every week that I met

00:38up with the Stones. Nick and I were down at the club and we didn't see Cyril, you know,

00:42we'd see what his new band was like and the piano player, he just blew us away.

00:49I first saw Nicky's name playing harpsichord I think on a Kinks record. So if we look back

00:54at some of those early Who records we can see like evidence of Nicky's musicality.

00:59He would just be in the background and Pete would say, okay we need some piano, we need

01:04this, and Nicky would just get up and play.

01:06When Nicky came into the Rolling Stones scene and all of a sudden this guitar band had this

01:14whole other color to it, or a bunch of colors.

01:17Suddenly Nicky had just come out with a riff or a melody line or something which completely

01:25changed the song.

01:27I don't think Nicky knew how, you know, good he was.

01:31Everybody would always talk about Nicky Hopkins this, Nicky Hopkins that, and sadly I became

01:37very aware that he was playing on everything.

01:40Nicky had three years of session work in London where he played with absolutely everybody.

01:45I took him to San Francisco to do a Steve Miller album, which he was brilliant on.

01:52Usually if somebody came to town like Nicky did for Steve Miller, he would get with this

01:59family and was meeting members of the dead and members of the Quicksilver and the Airplane.

02:05He should have played at Woodstock with the Jeff Beck group, but Jeff Beck sulked and went

02:10home, but Nicky still played at Woodstock because he was on stage with the Jefferson Airplane.

02:14He had an intuitive feeling of where the piano should sit and where it should be.

02:21Iconic guitar riffs.

02:22Well, he was the master and the creator of a lot of iconic piano riffs.

02:26I was involved in the Lennon stuff, but I imagine if you listen to actually, it's very

02:31delicate.

02:32But it was always very thematic and cinematic in a way.

02:36It was just, you know, beautiful, you know, session work, improv by Nicky.

02:41Over a 30 year period, Nicky Hopkins would play on over 250 albums.

02:47And during that time, he played with some of the greatest bands in the world.

02:52His contributions on their records made him rock and roll's greatest session man.

02:57Enter the Session Man.

02:58Enter the Session Man.

02:59Enter the Session Man.