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[Tape whirrs]

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[Crowd applauds]

NARRATOR: And on piano, the legendary Nicky Hopkins.

[Crowd cheers]

[Pop-rock music plays]

It was this unique marriage of the rawness

of the electric guitars and the rhythm section,

and then the wider palette of the piano.

Piano says, has all the colors and can say everything.

And a, a guy who's as talented as Nicky

can take a simple song

and fill it with all kinds of extra meaning and feeling.

Nicky could do the absolute incredible...

you would believe that Otis Spann was in the room,

which for, for a white English kid in 1960s,

was absolutely amazing.

GREG: You didn't realize how amazing he was

until you would take his contribution out.

And then you realize, oh man, that's, you know.

He's adding stuff in there that broadens and deepens the songs.

Or he's like, right out front.

He can entrance, he could play just about anything.

It was inspiring. He was talented.

He was invisible. It's an instinct. It's an art form.

Being a good session man.

It absolutely blew my mind to see

this list of such classic songs

that are still being played today.

And he performed on those.

I started listening for what he's added,

and it's like, it's genius, absolute genius.

NARRATOR: Over a 30 year period,

Nicky Hopkins would play on over 250 albums.

[Tape whirrs; piano plays]

In the golden age of rock and roll,

bands consisted of guitar and drums,

until they realized that the piano

added harmonic richness and melodic flair.

Then, along came the legendary pianist, Nicky Hopkins.

[Blues piano plays]

You know the story. It was when I was a little kid

and I was tall enough to reach up to play this...

I didn't know what was up there. It was just this table thing.

And all of a sudden, these things on the top,

which were the keys, right?

Started making a noise, and I got into it.

Mum lifted me up and helped me for about three years, and...

You know, I picked it up.

INTERVIEWER: So by the time you were six, you were rocking out?

- Almost. - Yeah.

He learned classical music to start with.

He went to the Royal Academy of Music

and discovered rock and roll when he was in his teens.

So he had both these strands, which is what I think,

one of the things that makes him unique.

So he could play very melodic, semi-classical parts,

but he also could play very beautiful gospel parts,

and very good blues playing.

BOB HARRIS: Nicky left the Royal Academy

and its emphasis on classical music

when he was 16 years old

and joined three other aspiring musicians.

They became the Savages.

[Rock music plays]

For Nicky, it was a raw entry into the world of rock and roll,

boozy venues and shady nightclubs.

The '60s, if you were a teenager in the 1960s,

you believed you could do anything.

It was a land of opportunity, then.

It was fantastic to be in London in the 1960s.

Well, at 16, yeah. We played local cinemas.

Back in those days, they could,

they'd have a little group on before the movie.

We had so much great music coming from America,

and unfortunately, you couldn't always see these artists.

So that led to, uh, a great, uh, boom in British artists.

The first pro gig I did was

with this bizarre character called Screaming Lord Sutch.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, yes. I remember Screaming Lord Sutch.

MIKE: It was, uh, you know, basic.

It was very basic, very cheap, and none of us had any money.

So I used to turn up and sometimes

you had to look for a poster,

see where we were playing, and then find the gig.

And then of course, the whole club circuit developed on pubs.

And, uh, that's where the, uh, young British bands

really learned how to play and how to perform to audiences.

All those clubs, you know, from Soho

going out all the way down to, you know,

Crawdaddy in Richmond or Eel Pie Island in Twickenham

or the Ricky-Tick in Windsor.

They're all in the area where I lived.

One of my favorite places was Eel Pie Island on the Thames,

where you had to cross a little bridge

and you had to pay tuppence to a little old lady, a toll.

[Rock music fades]

[Harmonica plays]

BOB: In November 1961,

Nicky joined the legendary Cyril Davies.

Cyril was a blues guy,

a phenomenal blues harmonica player,

who was with Alexis Korner

and decided to leave Alexis to form his own band.

And I understood why,

because Alexis was playing the right material,

but very insipidly.

Cyril went off on his own and made his own band,

which was called the Cyril Davies All-Stars.

And this included, amongst some other great players,

Nicky Hopkins, very young piano player.

NICKY: Cyril was a very aggressive guy

who wanted an authentic Chicago blues band.

And he actually took Sutch's band.

We had gotten pissed off with Sutch for some reason, uh,

and left Sutch about a month before,

and then all of a sudden the entire band, except for Sutch,

were just backing Cyril,

and we filled out the marquee every Thursday night to capacity

and then beyond.

Mick and I were down the club

and we went to see Cyril, and see what his new band was like.

And the piano player, they just blew, 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.

He is phenomenal, you know, he is.

And that was my first, Mick and I looked at each other:

Whoa. You know, where did Cyril find this guy?

Star, he had a special star,

which was this combination of gospel and classical

that, that I didn't ever heard anyone else do.

Seriously enough,

it was during that period of doing the marquee every week

that I met up with the Stones.

INTERVIEWER: What year now, Nicky,

that you met up with the Stones?

- Still the tail end of '62. - Oh, wow. That early then.

- Oh, yeah. - I see.

In fact, they were just starting and we were just starting.

We already had our audience.

Uh, they didn't, so they were our support act.

When I first met him, um, when he was playing

with Cyril Davies at the Marquee

'cause we were opening for Cyril Davies for about five shows

until we started to get a bit more applause than expected.

And then we got fired because he didn't like the competition.

[Music fades]

BOB: In May, 1963,

Nicky was rushed into King Edward's Hospital in Park Royal

with internal trouble and was put on the critical list.

He was later diagnosed with Crohn's disease,

which was complicated by losing his gallbladder,

his left kidney, and suffering a collapsed lung.

Crohn's disease is something where the, um,

the guts effectively become very inflamed, um,

because the immune system isn't working properly.

BOB: And as one young musician would testify,

Crohn's is no fun.

It kind of came out of nowhere.

I had it, I had symptoms for about three months of vomiting,

diarrhea, loss of weight, fatigue.

And it got to the point where I was rushed to hospital

and then I was quite quickly diagnosed with Crohn's.

But then, certainly, very little was known and understood

and how to treat it even less.

Trying to navigate your way through normal life,

as well as being a musician as well, which is, you know,

rock and roll and Crohn's don't go hand in hand.

BOB: Nicky's unexpected hospitalization

was to be the start of an illness

that plagued him all his life.

[Piano plays]

The way I ran into, found out about Nicky is, uh,

there was a, my go-to drummer at the time was Bobby Graham,

who was one of the great drummers in England.

And, uh, he told me that

he saw this kid named Nicky Hopkins playing piano.

And he was terrific, and I should check him out.

So I did. And he was absolutely correct.

Cyril Davies came in one Sunday

and he brought this young lad with him

who looked terribly ill, I must say.

- The one thing I remember... - He was so thin.

He was incredibly thin anyway,

but he'd turned up in clothes he'd obviously been wearing

before he'd been in the hospital.

Apparently he was playing the piano, so I mic'ed the piano up

He started playing and I'd never heard anything close to it.

So when the session finished, I went up to him

and I said, well, give me your number

and I'm sure I can get you lots of work, and da da da.

And he said, "Well, I'm not available at the moment

'cause I'm still not recovered from these operations I've had."

So I said, "Well, here's my number.

You ring me when you are feeling up to it,

and I know I can get you lots of work."

- Which he did, and I did. - I know.

Glyn, who was a producer and engineer,

recognized instantly that this guy

was going to be an important session player

because he covered so much, so many bases.

And that's where Nicky Hopkins could come in

as a classically trained pianist

who also miraculously could play in so many different styles,

whether it was boogie-woogie, the blues, rock and roll,

he could do it all.

[Music fades]

Ray wrote a, a poignant kind of, bit of a dig,

but respectful song called "Session Man".

Nicky plays this incredible baroque-esque type intro

on the harpsichord.

And I first saw Nicky's name playing harpsichord,

I think, on a Kinks record.

And man, you know, from day one, he was,

he was a guy that you would know, that's him,

and you'd pay attention,

'cause he always brought something beautiful

out of the song.

The studios, they had a harpsichord for orchestras.

And we used to dabble with it. And it somehow happened

Nicky knew how to play the thing.

So it became integrated because it was there.

And Ray liked the sounds and I loved the sounds.

'Cause the bands wanted keyboards on their records.

But actually, in most cases, they were known as guitar bands.

It was simple, basic,

what we wanted, sexually-driven kind of aggression.

Nicky had the ability to meld things together

without getting in the way.

Of course, he was technically brilliant, anyway.

These are people who, you know, worked every day.

This was their job, is to make great music

and to make good music better.

And I think Nicky was a prime member of that fraternity.

DAVE: And I think he worked very well with Ray

and extending Ray's vision of what to play on the piece.

You took Nicky away. It was like the magic disappeared.

Um, you don't what the magic is,

but something was missing

if you took his performance away from the recording.

[Piano plays]

So if we look back at some of those early Who records,

we can see, like, evidence of Nicky's musicality.

I had no idea what he was gonna do or how he was gonna do it,

or what show Tommy expected of him, how he was gonna fit in.

But of course, I did know who he was.

He'd played on "Country Line Special" and,

and really not get a sense of, of where this incredible blues,

high-speed blues piano came from.

He would just be in the background

and Pete would say, okay, we need some piano.

We need this. And Nicky would just get up and play.

So there's no clash of egos going on.

And, and the Who had massive clashes of egos in that band.

Not bad, but they,

that was why I think Nicky probably fitted in.

Later, on Who's Next and Who by Numbers ,

Nicky's contributions were very different.

They were very creative.

He was much more rounded,

much more straightforward to work with.

He didn't fall back into just doing his part.

He was really quite brilliant.

[Music fades]

And what he's doing is he's sort of, he's adding tension.

'cause most blues songs are kind of like that medium tempo,

but then he'd sort of double it up, you know?

So instead of playing same rhythm as the guitars,

which could be, you know,

[Upbeat piano plays]

I think he might do...

[Upbeat faster piano plays]

And especially on numbers like "The Ox",

which is, uh, an instrumental by The Who.

And just in the background,

you can hear this frantic piano going...

[Fast piano plays]

Again, about halfway through the tune, there's a piano break

and it's very clearly this kind of thing.

[Fast melodic piano plays]

Which, uh, you know,

it's that he runs this riff throughout the whole tune

with, you know, a few little variations as well.

And, you know, this sounds very much like a jam.

And they sort of do sort of merge into a 12 bar.

[Melodic piano plays]

Nicky's there with these crazy...

[Fast piano plays]

You know, in dispersing it with the original riff.

In 1967, I was doing, um, Cat Stevens' first album,

Matthew and Son.

And Nicky turned up and did the album

along with the other musicians.

And Nicky was fantastic.

There's one track on the Cat Stevens album,

Matthew and Son , called "Granny".

And he just played a great piano on that. It's piano heavy.

He did a fantastic job. Nicky added to the mix.

I mean, in other words, he wasn't just an ancillary,

I mean, what you have with most session musicians,

they, they come in, they do their job for three hours,

they'd disappear.

Uh, Nicky wasn't like that.

Nicky did want to do it again if he felt he could make it better.

PP Arnold, Pat Arnold was one of the Ikettes,

Ike and Tina Turner's backing group, three girl singers.

And I had a phone call from Andrew Loog Oldham,

who was the Stones' manager.

And he said, "I've signed this girl from the Ikettes

and we're gonna call her PP Arnold."

We were brainstorming

what material I would record for the first album.

I was, uh, called the First Lady of Immediate Records.

So Mike Hurst, who also produced Cat Stevens,

brought this great song to the meeting,

which was "The First Cut is the Deepest".

If people ask me what I'm proudest of,

probably there are two records.

One's a Cat Stevens track, uh, "I Love My Dog".

Strangely enough, the first one.

The other one is "The First Cut is the Deepest".

When I came into the studio and I met Nicky,

he was this really lovely, sweet guy,

you know, very quiet, very calming.

So I felt really this calming effect from him

that helped me to relax

because I was kinda shy and introverted as well.

So, and then, that is until he started playing the piano,

and I realized this guy is there,

this beautiful, sweet guy,

no ego coming off of him.

And he's like the real deal. You know?

[PP Arnold's "The First Cut is the Deepest" plays and fades]

BOB: Was it serendipity

that their paths crossed in those early days

at the Marquee Club? Who knows?

For Nicky, the Rolling Stones

would become a big part of his life.

When Nicky came into the Rolling Stones scene

and all of a sudden this guitar band

had this whole other color to it,

or a bunch of colors.

We were coming up with songs that, uh,

absolutely beyond Stu's, let alone capability, his dreams.

He didn't want to know. So I think that Stu called, said:

"The only guy that can handle this is Nicky Hopkins."

"She's a Rainbow", absolutely classic Stones song

with some beautiful piano from Nicky on it.

This great introduction, which really sets up the song

and again, you know, hugely, uh, identifying part of the song.

So the intro's got this very elegantly,

beautifully played piano.

[Plays melodic piano]

Stu was quite happy not to be playing what Nicky was.

Stu always said, you know,

if you ever did any major-minor, he went to minor chords.

He said, I don't play any of those Chinese shit.

And I remember hearing that piano

and it was this haunting intro, and then it was anticipated

and it, it, it kind of like didn't follow a click.

It was just like this freeform thing.

And, and it got my attention as, as a musician early on.

[Plays soft piano]

He had an intuitive feeling of where the piano should sit

and where it should be.

'Cause you're playing with two other stringed instruments

and in a way, you are a bridge.

You know, it's between the rest of the band being on piano.

Um, I don't think Nicky knew how, you know,

good he was, or just, you know,

his instinct for the right note at the right place.

So, uh, how could I not do, uh, justice by mentioning,

uh, "Sympathy for the Devil" and Nicky's contribution to that.

Uh, very simple on the intro, block chords,

but he does one very cool thing. So you got...

[Sings]: ♪ Please allow me to introduce myself

♪ I'm a man...

[Ascending notes]

He does that little lift

to bring it back to the, uh, tonic of the course of truth.

♪ Please allow me to introduce myself

♪ I'm a man of wealth and taste ♪

And he does that as you go through the song.

And then by the... get to the end,

and he's doing this great, uh, figure

using a seven chord like this.

[Plays upbeat piano]

You know, Nicky's just playing this piano part

that sits nicely with the band, doesn't stick out too much,

but you know, he is there. So we've got this.

But whenever you sort of started on a track

and sort of just put some basics on,

suddenly Nicky had just come out with a riff

or a, a melody line or something,

which completely changed the song.

I felt, uh, this thing between Nicky and me,

'cause I'm churning out songs, you know,

and, uh, you know, they're only half written, half made.

And yeah, we, we're boiling it in the studio

kind of thing, cooking it up.

And the way that Nicky would cotton onto

what I was just sort of barely laying down.

And I say, Nicky and I would look at each other and go,

[Breathes in] 'cause it was the other part

that was in my head,

but I couldn't put my finger on.

Just always adding that textural thing

and then sort of popping out of the texture when,

when called upon.

The way that Nicky plays that and swings it and voices it

and chooses to play these, these chords here.

And his just incredible rhythm.

Yeah, that's what drives the track to me.

That and Keith's bass playing on that is astonishing.

And somehow nearly with every other song,

Nicky would find that part.

And so we always had this sort of strange partnership

between ourselves, you know?

'Cause I would count on him sometimes, say,

"I've got a half a song here, Nicky, you know, yeah,

find me the other part", you know? Yeah.

And every time he'd come up with it, an incredible player.

No, he was a stunning, stunning player. I've never...

I think it's particularly underlined in the period of time

with the Rolling Stones,

which where he was featured, pretty much.

When Mick Taylor was in the band.

Those albums, which you'll, you'll quote...

BILL: Beggars Banquet; Sticky Fingers;

Exile on Main Street; Let It Bleed.

All those four were stunning albums.

One of my favorite Stones songs, "Monkey Man", I just...

I play that till the cows come home.

His introduction on that song.

It's like a, you know, it's like a great movie scene.

The first shot you see is like, you know,

wow, it's just gonna be great.

Just very distinctive chords.

[Fast, high-pitched ascending notes]

Um, you know, Nicky plays them great,

and I'm sure he came up with that arpeggio idea

rather than just, you know,

he could have played them as, played them as chords,

or even down here,

[Plays lower notes]

but he chose to play them like that.

And it adds an instant atmosphere to the song.

It's so iconic what he's doing there.

You know, you think of iconic guitar riffs.

Well, he was the master and the creator

of a lot of iconic piano riffs.

And outside blues piano,

you can't think of a lot of other people

whose riffs just hang in your mind

the way Nicky's do.

BOB: In total, Nicky would contribute

to 14 Rolling Stones albums.

I remember listening to "Revolution"

from The Beatles as a kid,

and I just remember hearing that crazy, crazy, uh,

uh, you know, electric piano solo

and what he did at the end of the song.

And I thought that was really cool because, uh, you know,

understanding that The Beatles were

a quartet with two guitars, bass, and a drum.

They didn't have a keyboardist. So it's like, who was that?

And what do you do when The Beatles call you in

to play on something?

I mean, Nicky walked in and played this solo,

which is an absolutely killing solo.

It's got some really cool ideas in it.

Um, it goes something like this.

[Plays fast upbeat piano]

Again, it's an absolutely rollicking solo,

and it's got, um, it's got these kind of cool ideas.

[Plays fast, repeating notes]

Just kind of a Nicky Hopkins trademark

in the sense that he's got that kind of movement,

that voicing that is changing.

It's not just... [Plays same notes fast]

He's actually got some inner-voice movement in there.

[Plays variety of notes fast]

BOB: The remarkable thing about playing on a Beatles album

was that it gave Nicky his first Grand Slam.

It meant that he'd now recorded with the Kinks, The Who,

the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.

[Upbeat rock music]

Nicky was not the star. He was the side man.

His job was to make the records better

and not to go, look, look at me!

And, uh, I think that, in that role,

he was much more purely and essentially a musician.

I couldn't employ him full-time.

And I, he was too good to sit, sit around and do nothing.

So, uh, I knew all those guys and, um, I said, you know, uh,

"I've got a great piano player for you.

You gotta check him out."

And of course, they, all of 'em wound up using him.

Everybody would always talk about Nicky Hopkins, this,

and Nicky Hopkins, that.

And, and sadly, I became very aware

that he was playing on everything.

Nicky had three years of session work in London

where he played with absolutely everybody,

In each record, each record album we did.

And then it was done. And then it was, oh, well,

what's the next one gonna be like?

And we'd get on and do the next one.

It was never with any viewpoint of having made a record

that people were gonna listen to 10 years, 15 years,

20 years, 25 years into the future.

I think most people that, uh, that work with Nicky,

they get him to come and do one song,

and then they suddenly realize,

he'd be great on that other side. [Laughs]

He said to me when he was working with Eric,

he said he'd go over and, uh,

and Eric would say, "Oh, that was wonderful."

"So do you, look, let me show you this one..."

- Eric is? - Eric Clapton, I mean, yeah.

He was one of the busiest and most successful session players,

and then decided he would go back on the road

and join the Jeff Beck Group.

[Piano plays]

BOB: The Jeff Beck group didn't ease Nicky's workload,

but it took him to America,

a country that was to have a big impact on him.

The Truth album would introduce the talents

of Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood,

And man, Nicky's feel,

and the notes that pour out of his soul

and land underneath Rod Stewart's vocal

and Jeff Beck's guitar are absolutely perfect

for such a badass rock track.

He would use different styles that were more heavy-handed.

He could enter into rock and roll.

Well, now here was Nicky with that classical training

being very soulful, bluesy, innovative, and improvising,

but with the precision of a classical player.

He had this, how would you say, cachet,

he had this cachet of information

that he could cross-reference.

He could put classical, Beethoven,

or whatever instances you would use.

The way Nicky played,

there was like a, there was a soulful precision.

So even when he was improvising and going crazy,

it was always really kind of in place, but very soulful.

[Music fades]

[Soul music plays]

Michael Chechik was doing a radio documentary,

and part of it was recording an interview with Glyn Johns.

And, uh, that took a couple hours actually.

And, uh, Glyn and I started talking about recording sound,

and he invited me over to Wally Heider Recording

where he was doing sessions with Steve Miller.

I took him to San Francisco to do a Steve Miller album,

which he was brilliant on.

I was a sound engineer myself,

and I was picking up tips from Glyn as I watched him, uh,

for the duration of recording the Steve Miller album

Your Saving Grace.

And he stayed, and I think

he got hit on by Quicksilver Messenger Service

- and he played with them. - Yeah he did, yeah.

I was blown away by his keyboard, um, playing.

I saw that he was above and beyond

just about anybody I'd ever heard.

After working a long day,

we were listening to an old Steve Miller band album,

and we were listening to Your Saving Grace , which is,

um, has a song on it, "Baby's House", which Steve Miller, um,

had Nicky Hopkins on piano and organ,

and it's my favorite performance of Nicky's.

People were desperate to try

and follow in the footsteps of Sergeant Pepper,

really, I suppose that's what started it all.

And of course, an album by then could sell him millions.

That's why it was so important

to spend a lot of time in the studios

with the best musicians available

to produce the finest album you could do.

[Piano fades]

BOB: Nicky was still playing with the Jeff Beck Group,

but internal friction within the band

had reached breaking point

with the departure of Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart.

So he stayed in Mill Valley, um, north of San Francisco.

Immediately, having now played with the Stones

on Famous Records and the Beatles,

he immediately was, um, embraced as rock royalty.

You know, the, the San Francisco bands were basically,

it was kind of like Motown.

I mean, they were a family.

Now, all the San Francisco bands at this time

were recording at Wally Heider Studio,

which was still moderately new down on Post Street.

And, and people were just hanging out all the time.

Usually, if somebody came to town

like Nicky did for Steve Miller,

he would get with this family

and was meeting members of the Dead

and members of Quicksilver and the Airplane.

And he ended up just, I think he fell in love with the town

and, um, decided to stay for a while.

[Rock music plays]

Now, I wish that I could say who it was

that got Nicky involved in this,

but whoever it was: good thinking,

because he did some incredible playing on that record.

JACK: Nicky's left hand would just solidify us,

like putting pinpoints of foundations around a building

as he'd fill in other harmonic aspects to it.

It wasn't a left hand playing rhythm

then the right hand doing melody.

He would work truly like a, a concert pianist,

like a classical musician.

And he, and with all of his training,

the rest of us would just fall right in line.

Before, as we'd work on the songs, Nicky would come in

and put that, just the, the solidness into the track.

He should have played at Woodstock

with the Jeff Beck group.

But Jeff Beck sulked and went home.

But Nicky still played at Woodstock

because he was on stage with the Jefferson Airplane.

JACK: Woodstock at the beginning of the tour

was just another gig we had.

We had to be somewhere else a couple of days later.

I don't think anybody had an idea what was gonna happen.

And I remember that when we, when the Airplane,

everybody's got their own story about this, but,

but we went on about 18 hours late.

If we were to do a festival like that today, it would be,

I hope I never work this gig again as long as I live.

I mean, for a lot of reasons.

Even though the world was really in a really bad state,

we were going through the Vietnam War, civil rights,

but the youth were bringing it all together.

We were trying to change things.

So it was a time of change for humanity.

I will never play for a crowd as big as this, as long as I live.

And when we actually see that it defies description.

BOB: Woodstock would later be regarded as a pivotal moment

in popular music history.

And the "Volunteers" song played at Woodstock

by Jefferson Airplane

has been described as

"One of the great anti-war protest songs of the '60s."

[Fast piano plays]

Nicky had, by this time, met up with John Cipollina,

founder member of Quicksilver Messenger Service.

John and David Freiberg from Quicksilver came up to see me,

and they said that, uh, they were short one guy

because Gary Duncan had left,

and it was just those two and Greg Elmore.

Um, so they needed a fourth for the album.

I said, would I stay on?

Like many of the San Francisco groups,

Quicksilver Messenger Service with John Cipollina, was...

a little bit more freewheeling than, uh, groups in the UK.

They went off on tangents sometimes,

and Nicky, being an improvisational piano player,

loved that.

He loved doing things off the cuff.

John and Nicky realized very soon

that they had very much in common.

And ended up staying at his house.

And, uh, they became extremely close.

Nicky recorded "Shady Grove" with, uh, Quicksilver

when Quicksilver had kind of changed slightly.

More than anything, I just enjoyed...

having John as a friend more than anything.

BOB: Nicky hadn't just found a friend.

He was welcomed and truly embraced

by John Cipollina's wider family.

They loved him because they get, it was a musical family.

John's mother, Evelyn, had been a concert pianist.

She was a protégé of José Iturbi,

and she was a piano teacher for decades.

And, um, like minds attracted, and, and you know,

Nicky could go up there and just sit and play piano and,

and he fit, he fit right in with what was a musical,

a totally musical family.

He was one of the family.

[Rock music plays live]

I know John knew Terry from before.

And at some point when,

when Quicksilver was kind of winding down,

John and Terry started doing things together.

And by that time, Nicky was, like I said, one of the family.

I remember Nicky inviting me down

to play bass on a track called "Rainbow"

he was producing in San Francisco

for a Terry Dolan album for Warner Brothers.

Uh, Nicky produced side one of the project,

but he had to go off on a long Stones tour.

They asked me, Terry and Nicky asked me to produce side two.

I like working with Terry.

I found that to be a real fun gig to do.

And we do, I actually did quite a few gigs.

I'd just fly up there for the weekend, do a gig with Terry,

and come back again.

We used to do that umpteen times.

And with Terry and the Pirates, they were together so long.

Nicky played many, many sessions through the years with Terry.

And Terry had many, many musicians.

BOB: Often described as a Marin County's Boy Club

of Professional Players led by Terry Dolan,

Terry and the Pirates had become a kind of revolving door

for musicians who were between jobs.

[Rock music continues]

Then we did the, the gig in Hamburg,

which was a television show, and then slept about six hours.

And then the next morning came back to the States.

I couldn't believe it. It's like we were in Europe

for about three days and did three gigs...

in three different cities hundreds of miles apart.

It was nuts.

But I know that Nicky enjoyed playing with

both Quicksilver and Terry Dolan,

and there were a couple other groups

that he played with in San Francisco

that were essentially anchors for him to, uh,

give him reason to stay in his home in Mill Valley.

[Music fades]

[Upbeat fast piano plays]

It was great to come to somewhere like the Bay Area

and find some people who weren't into all this being,

all this self-important crap.

And one could just be oneself. I thought it was great.

Kindred spirits and all that.

BOB: Gerry Garcia was best known as guitarist

with the Grateful Dead,

who were part of the counterculture of the 1960s.

Nicky was a rock and roll player,

and I mean, aside from everything else he could do,

he could play rock and roll piano like, like nobody else.

I think his major God

was Jerry Lee Lewis more than Chopin.

And, um, he brought that rock and roll sensibility,

which Gerry loved.

And, uh, it was just, it was something different.

Gerry was always looking for something different,

whether it was his bluegrass band or his Jerry Garcia band,

or the Sanders-Garcia Band.

And he was just looking for something different.

And Nicky was, was there.

[Music fades]

[Slower piano music plays]

BOB: In 1976,

when Starsky & Hutch was a huge television hit,

David Soul recorded an album entitled David Soul.

I don't know David Soul.

I know what he did with Starsky and Hutch ,

and I know that David Soul did his own solo album,

which actually was pretty popular.

And Nicky played on that.

Nicky Hopkins playing on David Soul's album.

This is something I didn't know about, this is a revelation.

And I find the thought incredibly entertaining.

It's so funny that a guy who would be, like, a famous actor,

well, "I want to be a rock star" or whatever, you know.

David Soul wanted to have more exposure,

and music was one way to do it.

He was a guitar player, from what I understand,

and he had a, a good voice and he, um, wanted to use it.

I don't know that he and David Soul

had any kind of relationship.

I don't know if Nicky had any relationship

with David Soul's producer, or where that came from,

but he was just the gold-star session piano player.

[Music fades]

[Sings]: ♪ Tell me how do you sleep at night? ♪

[Melodic rock music plays]

Hit it.

♪ Jump when your momma tell you anything ♪

So it was really the Beatles and quickly the Stones

that had melody with the soul of the old blues guys.

That was like an explosion and a revelation,

an emotional revelation that, that was like a possession.

I fell in love with rock and roll

through the Beatles and Stones.

The other side of, of Nicky was that

he could be quite delicate as well.

I mean, I wasn't involved in the Lennon stuff,

but I would imagine if you listen to actually

what he's actually playing, it's very delicate.

You just have to pick it out.

BOB: Nicky had crossed paths with John Lennon

a few times over the years.

It came as no surprise to Nicky when John invited him

to be a part of the sessions for his Imagine album.

Looking around, you know, I saw Klaus.

I already knew obviously who he was.

And so I was very, uh... it just added to the, uh,

to the otherworldly feeling

that I had been there in John Lennon's little studio

with John and Phil.

The track I think that Nicky liked the most

was "Jealous Guy".

You couldn't go wrong. It was John and his song

and his singing, and he loved the song, obviously.

And, and it was, uh, about, you know,

one of the people he loves most in the world.

And, you know, and the whole thing was set up

to just move you, the listener.

People who have heard that song over the years, you know,

they, they hear it and they,

they feel that that wonderful little kind of vibe.

And Nicky Hopkins, to me, was a huge part of that.

Nicky's sound on the piano was like

that of an English garden to me.

So, for example, in Nicky's music,

I would say something like "Jealous Guy" and "Angie",

would be good examples of where he will repeat little patterns.

And it's quite subliminal, I think, for the listener.

I could feel John responding, um, to our playing.

And I love that. I've always loved that.

When you're in the studio and you're making a record,

you, you can't help but feel everybody's vibe.

Nicky had such respect for John and his abilities, you know.

And, um, I know that he enjoyed working on the Imagine album.

BOB: There's been a lot of speculation

that John played the piano on Imagine

and not Nicky;

Moira Hopkins sees it as making perfect sense.

MOIRA: You know, that was such a big song

that John should be playing the piano for that particular song,

because it was like the name of the album as well, wasn't it?

It was very important.

So I'm on piano on most of the rest of that album,

which was great.

And, uh, of course, John was such a unique character.

I found that John was very into him being,

just being himself anyway, and getting things done.

John was brilliant because

he could get things done very quickly,

which was why, 'cause I asked him once,

why move to New York?

He said, because it's the only place that can keep up with him.

I thought, yeah, okay, well that makes sense.

[Music fades]

BOB: Nicky was well-liked by all of the ex-Beatles.

And Paul McCartney was no exception.

So I used to drive him places, you know,

and, um, so I, he said, uh, oh, well, he said, um,

"Paul wants me to go down to Winchelsea."

"He wants me to come down to the studio."

So I, I drove him down and, um, you know, went in with him.

And, uh, when Paul, uh, saw that Nicky had arrived,

he came up and hugged him.

And over his shoulder, he said to me, oh, he said,

"It's been so long since I've seen him."

He's a, and he was so very happy to see him, you know.

BOB: Despite Paul McCartney's admiration for him,

Nicky was asked to audition for Paul's Wings.

He'd known Paul for over 20 years.

He didn't join Wings.

I actually have no proof of it, but I think that

because, uh, you know,

Linda was, was playing, that...

maybe she didn't feel so comfortable

with Nicky being there on the, you know, on piano.

BOB: In 1989, Paul invited Nicky to play on his album

Flowers In The Dirt, almost 18 years on

from playing on the Imagine album in 1971,

Nicky achieved his second Grand Slam.

He'd now played on the solo albums of all four Beatles.

[Guitar plays]

First of all, the thing you want to do,

if you're a person that plays on records,

the thing you pray for is that

it's a great song to be able to play on.

BOB: Different from the production

of his previous albums,

George Harrison carefully chose a small core of musicians

to support him.

He included Nicky Hopkins.

But George, when I heard that little song,

"Give Me Love",

it just did the same thing, only in a little bit

of a different way than John's "Jealous Guy" did.

It was, it just, you just knew exactly what to play.

And with, with Nicky playing those chords,

the way he would play those chords,

and with the touch that he played them,

it wasn't anything you could do wrong.

You couldn't go wrong.

He had this invaluable ability to realize

where to start playing in the song.

You don't have to play from the top.

And where to play in relation to the melody

and just what can break your heart

with a few notes up high.

You know, those guys had him on their records for that reason,

because he could elevate, uh, a song

to a place that it might not have gotten to.

Nicky would come up with these little vignettes

that were so memorable, you know,

you would hear it and you'd say, wow, that, that makes that song,

BOB: That creativity, that ability

to come up with vignettes

effortlessly added to and made songs better.

Something another ex-Beatle understood.

I'm choosing "Photograph" from Ringo Star, because...

Yes, because, no, it's, it's a beautiful song.

It's certainly one of the more obscure ones.

Nice simple pop song, the essence of that song, again,

you'd have to point to Nicky.

I would have to, anyway.

[Upbeat piano plays]

[Fades to "Photograph" by Ringo Starr]

The arrangement was great overall,

everything about all the playing and everything,

but Nicky's touch, you know, it's just another example

of having Nicky Hopkins and a Beatle together,

and I'm in the room with 'em.

That's just a great, great...

It doesn't get any better than that for me, personally.

[Music fades]

[Low piano plays]

So I have two favorite Nicky Hopkins tracks.

The first one is called "A Dreamer" off the album

The Tin Man was a Dreamer , and man,

his piano playing and the way he's playing

feels next to the orchestra is absolutely exquisite.

BOB: Nicky was working with George Harrison

during the week, and at weekends,

he recorded his own solo album The Tin Man was a Dreamer ,

helped, of course, by some of his mates, including George.

Every piano player that I've known since those days,

and I've talked about Nicky, they, they all bow,

uh, you know, he just was one of those unusual beauties

that comes around once in a while.

I didn't know it at the time. Why was he called the Tin Man?

He collected tea tins, English tea tins, you know,

'cause some of the artwork on these things,

especially when you... was pretty incredible.

Also on The Tim Man was a Dreamer is this,

is this version

of his, uh, of his song "Edward the Mad Shirt Grinder".

[Plays dramatic piano]

[Piano fades]

The '70s were his most successful period in his life.

He was, um, commuting across the Atlantic

to play with the Stones and, um, with John Lennon

and countless sessions in Los Angeles.

BOB: Nicky had returned to London

to be part of the Rolling Stones' latest album,

Let It Bleed. Bill Wyman picks up the story.

Yeah, we all arrived at the studio,

and Ry Cooder came and hung out, and Keith didn't like that.

So Keith went home, I think, and it just,

it was just, just us, wasn't it?

And, uh, we didn't know what to do, so we just,

Nicky just started jamming.

Then we just sort of jammed and fooled around, didn't we?

And Mick just threw in bits and pieces.

- It was completely spontaneous. - And it was just alive.

And I realized that something unusual could happen.

So I started running the tape.

It was a very stoned thought, was the title.

Um, I had become Edward on some Stones sessions, um,

because Keith, it was at Olympic,

which was a huge area, huge floor area.

Keith was tuning his guitars up, and he was yelling at me

because the, the headphones weren't working.

And so it was hard to hear. And he said,

"Nicky, gimme an E." I said, what?

He said, "Gimme an E." I said, "Can't hear you."

"Gimme an E for Edward." So I became Edward.

[Rock music plays]

The first time I met Nicky Hopkins,

I believe was on the sessions for, uh, Harry Nilsson,

for the Son of Schmilsson record.

BOB: Son of Schmilsson was an eclectic mixture of styles.

It accentuated Nilsson's reputation

for producing anarchic and eccentric work.

That was, uh, that's a good way to describe Harry Nilsson.

He was an anarchist, to some degree.

Uh, but, you know, "You're Breakin' My Heart",

that's typical Harry Nilsson.

Fun, and, uh, speaking his mind and, uh, you know,

little dirty words here once in a while.

It's not really a dirty word anymore, is it?

I mean, Nilsson is not only a great singer and composer,

but he's an excellent pianist.

And he played on several tracks by Nilsson.

I think it was probably during that time in LA

when there was a lot of partying going on,

like the Hollywood Vampires and John Lennon

and Keith Moon going a bit nuts in the studio.

And I imagine Nicky was part of that party,

and maybe that night, Nilsson was too drunk.

So he said, you play the piano.

BOB: Harry Nilsson thoroughly enjoyed

and appreciated what Nicky brought

to the recording sessions.

The end result? Nicky played on nine out of the 11 tracks.

[Music fades]

He was a white man from Sheffield, uh, England, right?

And, but he sounded like a Black man

that had maybe been born in Mississippi.

And he was just extraordinary, Joe, just incredible.

BOB: Nicky's friendship with Joe Cocker

was, from the outset, unlikely.

The wild party man from Sheffield

and the quiet retiring piano player.

It's not so much Nicky Hopkins' intro

to, um, "You Are So Beautiful", which is, um, genius.

But it's his touch in general. Um, his sense of melody.

But he, I didn't even think his fingers were moving.

He had such a beautiful touch.

There's "You Are So Beautiful",

and there's "Bridge Over Troubled Water",

Larry Knechtel on piano, and I, I put them on the same level.

It's a song that Nicky was particularly proud of.

Um, and you can see why, it's a beautiful piano part.

It has different textures in, he varies which register he's in

to bring different weight into different sections.

Uh, and it really sort of shows the,

the kind of sensitivity and vulnerability of the lyrics.

But Nicky's playing on "You Are So Beautiful" is just,

I mean, I get goosebumps when I listen to it every time.

You know, to this day, it's one of the most beautiful

backing tracks for any person.

And of course, it was Joe Cocker.

BOB: In 1976, Joe, who'd been struggling with debts,

agreed on a tour of New Zealand, Australia, and South America.

They got along really well.

I think when Joe decided to go back out on the road again,

he wanted Nicky and Bobby Keyes with him.

And, uh, they had all sorts of adventures.

This was before Nicky actually went to rehab.

[Music fades]

[Piano plays]

There's a track on the Airwaves album called "The Dreamer",

and that's probably the outstanding piano track.

Uh, at one point, the song reverts back to the intro,

which is just acoustic guitar

and little sprinkles of piano on,

and then me playing guitar with the volume knob.

I listen to it to this day, and it's just tears.

BOB: Badfinger originated from the UK,

but had morphed into a West Coast band.

Joe tells us about recording their album Airwaves.

So, uh, we discussed Nicky and Joe

and Tom had run into 'em at Abbey Road,

or working with the Beatles a few times.

And, uh, the name came up and me, I went, "twist my arm".

It was a dream come true. Having him play piano.

Uh, I don't know what it is about English guys.

They don't drive. None of 'em drove at the time.

They were like, "We don't drive. We get driven around."

Okay. "Go pick Nicky up."

He's living in, uh, Canoga Park.

I get the address and bring him to rehearsal.

Showed up at the front door and knock on the door.

Guy's standing there in his underwear,

got messing around with his eyes and his hair's all messed up,

and there's Joe Cocker opening the front door.

And he looked like John Belushi imitating Joe Cocker.

Apparently they'd been up having too much fun the night before,

and they were sharing a place together at the time.

That was the first time I'd ever met Nicky.

[Music fades]

I'll tell you what impressed me about Nicky the most was

after working with the Rumour,

who it was a bit painstaking getting them to learn my songs,

and they generally deconstructed them

and tried to do something else with them

before coming back to the song.

But Nicky, um, he'd listened to the song once

and play through with a, you know, a take.

We'd do a take with Nicky playing.

He'd play through it once, and that was all.

I didn't have to tell him anything after that.

He'd learned it.

Well, bands couldn't live in the studios forever.

They were expected to go out

and entertain all the people that bought their albums.

And, uh, it was the biggest money spinner, really.

It was to go on a major epic tour of Europe or America,

or even to Japan.

[Crowd applauds]

BOB: Graham Parker and The Rumour

had a big following in Germany.

When they were invited to play one of the Rock Palace concerts,

Nicky decided to accompany his friend.

[Sings]: ♪ All sensation

♪ So get them, get them

♪ But don't get me

♪ Can't hear, your cries

♪ So don't get me to fill up your empty lives

♪ Your empty lives

♪ Your empty lives

♪ Your empty lives ♪

[Music fades]

[Solemn piano plays]

BOB: For Nicky, whose health was fragile at the best of times,

the Rolling Stones' 50-show schedule was grueling

to the point that it had become a dangerous factor.

There was a lot of downtime doing nothing.

You know, to be honest, they had their,

their bit on stage was fantastic for that two hours.

It was fantastic,

and they wanted to carry that on, really, afterwards.

Crohn's can be very challenging,

especially when you're on a long tour and you're not eating well.

He physically wasn't very well,

but, you know, he had a lot of problems all through his life

with his, uh, health.

And so he was ill a lot.

So when I first came into the position with the Stones

and Stu and I became good friends, I asked him, I said,

Stu, look, I'm real happy to be here, don't get me wrong,

but where's Nicky?

Why isn't Nick Hopkins here?

And they said, with Nicky, bless his heart,

he always had health problems.

And so the band was scared that'd be on tour,

and that, you know, a major date coming up,

and he'd have some kind of attack

and couldn't make the show.

[Music fades]

Like many of us back in the day,

uh, Nicky did have a bit of a drinking problem, I guess.

Mostly a problem because of his ill health

and frail constitution.

I know that Nicky took drugs.

He was, uh, in pain, and he took to drugs for his pain.

I doubt that he was an addict,

in the classical sense.

The medical profession defines an addict

as someone who has a disruption in their psychosocial,

um, functioning.

And Nicky had none of those.

With me, however, it grew so out of control.

I mean, I was doing pretty much every drug,

every existing drug to the max and then beyond.

He had about a 10 year bout, more or less,

with drugs and alcohol.

He was the wrong person to be living that lifestyle.

He wasn't strong enough for it, and he got...

It took him to a very, very bad place eventually.

I mean, he would, he would talk to me about it.

He would talk to me about the stupid things that he did.

And, um, you know,

and of course he'd, he'd suffered physically

for a number of years with, I think it was Crohn's disease.

So I think the combination of Crohn's disease

and the other excesses of being on the road

at that particular period, um, weren't helpful to him.

I was working with Chick Corea,

and I got a call from Artist Relations at Moog,

a friend of mine, Robbie Konikoff,

and he said, "Rory, I have a favor of you."

I said, what's that? He goes, "Do you know Nicky Hopkins?"

And I, I went, yeah, of course I do.

And I lit up because I was like, where's this going?

I get to meet him, you know?

And he said, "Well, he really wants to meet Chick.

Can you set that up?" And I said, of course. You know.

So I asked Chick, I said, Chick, I know we're rehearsing,

but Nicky Hopkins is in town

and would really like to meet you.

Can we make this happen?

He goes, "Absolutely, and bring him in."

So Chick comes out very cordial and happy,

and, you know, he's rehearsing, this is going great.

Nicky said, "Chick, what a pleasure to meet you."

And puts his hand out, shakes his hand.

He goes, "How are you doing?"

And Chick said, "Great man, great."

He goes, "How are you doing?"

And it got really quiet

and Nicky looks at Chick and said, "Not so good."

Chick goes, "Well, what's wrong?"

Goes, "Uh, doctor told me I have two weeks to live

unless I quit heroin."

And Chick said, "I'm gonna get you into rehab."

And Chick called a few phone numbers, got him into rehab,

and that probably saved his life at that moment.

I went in pretty negatively. I didn't think it would work,

I didn't think anything could work.

I thought, well, it's the only thing I know.

It's like a last ditch effort.

And much to my surprise, it did work.

I mean, which amazed me.

[Electric guitar plays]

I first met Nicky Hopkins in 1985,

and it was for a session when I,

The Stray Cats were taking a break,

and we all made solo records.

And Lee Rocker and myself teamed up with Earl Slick.

And like I said, Earl Slick knew Nicky from the past.

We were at the point of the record

where we needed the piano, Slick called Nicky.

Nicky came to Capital Studios.

He had a rock and roll style,

but very melodic and a soft touch without tinkling.

He had a great technique and a good pounding of the keys,

but in a melodic way.

Very, um, unusual combination that's wanted by everybody.

So he wound up playing on three tracks.

There was one track called, uh, "No Regrets" that he played on.

There was another track called "Lonely Actions"

that was almost like a ballad,

but not quite, a little bit of a rock beat to it.

And then he played on one called "Time Is On My Hands",

which is a, which is a straight-up blues in appearance.

But the chord changes are a little bit different.

It's a little, not quite as, uh, trad blues.

And Nicky played beautifully on it.

[Music fades]

[Upbeat piano plays]

This tribute was planned.

And then, you know, it was only about four weeks after,

after John died that the tribute happened at the Fillmore.

Uh, oh, bloody hell. I, I really should be there.

Nicky, uh, heard about John's passing

and the tribute and was actually on tour

with Art Garfunkel in Australia.

And he got on a plane and made sure

he was at the Fillmore

to, to memorialize John's legacy there.

[Upbeat music plays]

BOB: And when John passed away, he'd not only lost

a very close friend, he'd lost a kindred spirit.

It seemed fitting that Nicky would reunite with

Terry and the Pirates to say farewell to John.

[Music and piano continue]

[Music fades to rock song]

There was one song called "Don't Touch Me".

Uh, I had this kind of little modal guitar intro

and this cool beat,

and it was, it's just a classic Nicky thing

'cause I play a lick and there's a hole,

play a lick and there's a hole, play...

There's about four or five of those before I started singing.

And right off the bat, I played this very kind of classic,

um, I, this is a bad word, it's not classical,

but it was a little demented.

It was off the rock path, and instantly in the hole,

Nicky started doing demented answering,

and it was just completely natural,

like when we were jamming.

So Nicky was mostly on piano all the time.

And, uh, as we went from song to song,

Jeffrey and I would, uh, arrange the songs

and be pretty together with

here's the arrangement, here's the chord.

So right off the bat, especially with Nicky,

when we started recording, he was already, uh,

with no real direction from us other than: "Be Nicky Hopkins".

He was already orchestrating the music.

You know, he would do these octave themes

and just naturally, he would pull back

when the singing was happening.

When the singing stopped, he'd lean into it.

But it was always very thematic and cinematic, in a way.

And it was just, you know, beautiful, you know,

session work, improv by Nicky.

[Music fades]

He had a famously difficult girlfriend-wife,

his first wife Dolly,

who was very ambitious for Nicky to be a rock star.

And probably prompted him into a solo career,

which was not his strength.

He wasn't a front man, he was a side man.

He was a brilliant side man, but not a front man.

I think his wife, Dolly,

was handling most of his business at the time.

Dolly was combination, wife, lover, babysitter, um,

mother, all of the above.

For about three years, everything was fine.

They got along fine.

And, um, you know, they had fun together.

But, um, I think, uh, something changed.

He said it was a challenging relationship, really.

But he didn't want to disparage her at all.

He was very gentlemanly like that.

And, you know, it was grey. It was faults on both sides.

They grew apart because...

well, Nicky had gone to rehab

and I believe Dolly did too, but she didn't stick with it.

So quite honestly, she, she was still drinking,

whereas he had stopped, you know, but that's very difficult.

Like, if, you know, you've just gone through rehab

and then there's somebody living in the same household,

you know, who is drinking every day.

It's, it's difficult.

I, yeah, when I first met, uh, Moira with Nicky,

I thought, whoa, he's landed on his feet with this lady.

It was instantly, uh, the way

I'd like to see my friend with somebody like that.

It's, it was a very nice thing.

Somebody took me up to meet Nicky

and I was introduced to him,

and he shook my hand.

And, um, you know, uh, I can't remember what we said,

but he was so kind and so nice that I walked away

and I said to my friend, I said, "Wow."

I said, I wish I could marry somebody like Nicky Hopkins,

[She laughs]

'cause he's so nice.

You know, he was just, just a wonderful human being.

And it, it kind of shone through.

You know, Nicky liked Art, and Art liked Nicky,

and he loved his work.

Nicky called me and he said,

"I'm doing this show with Art Garfunkel

on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,

and we need strings.

Will you play the strings for us?"

I started playing these great orchestral string sounds,

and Art was like,

"What I'm looking for is a snowbird walking on snow.

Real thin, simple. Boom."

I'm watching Nicky play the intro,

and he just does this simple, beautiful... wasn't simple.

He makes it look simple.

This beautiful intro to this song.

Art comes in, and even as a musician, you well up,

you get the chills, the hair goes up,

and you're like, this is magic.

[Sings]: ♪ Here I am

♪ Alone on the plain

♪ Sun's going down

♪ It's starting to rain

♪ Papa, we'll go sailing ♪

[Music fades]

When Art, uh, played the Albert Hall,

and, uh, Nicky was, you know, not only playing the piano,

he was also his music director.

Art took a, a break, you know, um, for his voice,

like, just for about 5 or 10 minutes,

and he introduced Nicky as the legendary Nicky Hopkins

playing his own composition.

And, uh, it was a piece that Nicky wrote

when he came back to Britain.

He was so happy to be home that

he wrote this piece of music called "The Homecoming",

and he played it at the Royal Albert Hall.

And that was very nice of Art to allow him to do that.

[Soft piano plays]

JIM: Nicky Hopkins was the kind of piano player

that you needed

if you were gonna play with Art Garfunkel.

Artie knew that.

And, uh, to his credit, you know,

they made some great music together.

[Soft piano plays]

I met Nicky in February, 1987 through Gray Levett,

who was representing Nicky at the time.

Woody Woodmansey had introduced me to Gray

because I left Dexys Midnight Runners

and I was forging a new career, um,

and writing an instrumental album.

And when I met Gray, he said,

"Nick is doing a similar project writing instrumental music."

So he said, "Why don't you two get together?"

And the thought of playing with Nicky was, um,

a dream come true, really, I suppose.

And that was the start of a musical relationship

and our friendship.

He loved being back in, uh, England.

He'd moved from America,

and I came over from America and joined him.

And then we got married at, um, Hever Castle.

It was at Hever Castle.

The special guest of honor was Art Garfunkel,

and his, uh, his wife.

It was a great day. It was a sunny day.

We had, you know, um, someone playing the bagpipes,

dressed up in the Highland attire.

We had to go back to America,

because he was missing a lot of work.

You know, Joe Cocker had been looking for him,

wanted to come play on an album.

And, um, someone else, I can't think who it was now,

but, um, so we wound up, we, we went back to LA.

[Music fades]

[Rock music plays]

You know, we had, I think, met with Nicky,

uh, when we were getting,

when we were looking for people to be in the band.

I think we met with him just to have the thrill of meeting Nicky

because he was, I think he was busy at the time.

And so we just thought, well, let's, let's have a meeting.

We weren't jerking him off or anything.

We just wanted to say, we're doing this

and you're doing that, and how great.

But he was working.

I think he would've been too good for us,

you know, what we were trying to do.

We weren't trying to do bad music,

but I mean, Nicky was a virtuoso.

I think we would've had trouble making that funny.

And then when, when "Rainy Day Sun" came up,

we just thought, that's the guy.

We're not asking him to be in something for 28 days.

We're asking him to come to a session.

And, uh, we got it. We got it together.

MOIRA: Well, when Nicky did the recording with Spinal Tap,

I took him down to the studio

and he was asking Christopher Guest

if he didn't, like, model his part in Spinal Tap on Jeff Beck.

He said, go on, just tell me.

He goes, you were Jeff Beck, weren't you?

[She laughs]

And he wouldn't tell him. He wouldn't admit to it.

You know, part of the thrill of doing that project was,

uh, either in the making or later getting to meet people

that we really just thought the world of.

And, uh, Nicky was absolutely one of them.

[Music fades]

[Jazz song plays]

Back in '92, Nicky and I played piano together

on a, a zero album,

uh, Chance in a Million being recorded live

and, uh, at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

And we just went nuts and started trading licks

back and forth in the, uh, piano solo.

When I grew up listening to so many different kinds of music

that I like a lot of different kinds of music,

and I've learned to play them over the years too.

I mean, I've become quite involved in,

in many different kinds and different forms of music.

So I don't feel that it's necessarily being a dilettante

with all, with any particular form of music.

I think I've gotten to know many kinds of music quite well,

or very well.

BOB: The spring of 1993 found Nicky in an upbeat mood.

Plans had been formed to begin recording

with Frankie Miller and Joe Walsh.

There were discussions regarding a tour with Harry Nilsson,

and he had his own ongoing film projects.

And everything was actually fine for about two or three years.

He didn't complain of any, um, upsets.

And then sadly, um, '93 wasn't a good year,

because he had a sudden eruption that, um, put him in hospital.

And he was saying that he was going in

and out of the hospital.

His Crohn's disease was kicking in,

and they were just taking more intestine out and doing that.

Even today, most people after, say,

10 years of having Crohn's disease

has had some form of surgery.

But back in Nicky's day, it probably was the main

form of treatment in the end, because there were so few drugs.

He had to have one organ or another removed.

I thought it was his kidney, but maybe it was something else.

BOB: Moira received many messages from friends

for Nicky's recovery,

including an unexpected one from an ex-Beetle.

Paul happened to be in LA when, uh,

Nicky was ill in hospital, and he made a point of calling up

and, uh, saying to me, "Please give all the best to Nicky

and tell him, you know, I hope that he gets well soon,

and that, you know, I'm thinking of him."

And that was really wonderful.

[Music fades]

We were living just up the road from Joe Walsh in Encino

in, uh, Los Angeles.

So Nicky and Joe got together with Terry Reid,

and they put this band together called the Flu.

That's Joe's idea: "What are we gonna call it? The Flu?"

I'm going, oh God, here we go.

BOB: Joe was in negotiations for the reforming of the Eagles,

but it didn't stop these three friends having some fun.

When you're doing gigs as a band,

you know yourself as playing, you know, when you're playing,

you remember those gigs.

INTERVIEWER: That's quite a lineup, Terry.

Oh, it's a hell of a, oh, no, oh, the rehearsals!

INTERVIEWER: I 'd like to be a fly on the wall.

Oh, God, I felt like we were flies on the wall.

Now when, when you're doing rehearsals,

you never knew what was gonna happen.

I mean, with Joe, everything, every, I dunno, I love Joe.

He is the funniest guy I think I've ever met in music.

They had a great concert, and he was hoping to do more.

And actually, um, Nicky did do more with Joe

and a Scottish singer called Frankie Miller.

They recorded about four or five pieces of music

in this little recording studio in, uh, Georgia.

BOB: 1994 began badly for Nicky.

The Northridge earthquake occurred in the early hours

in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles.

The northern half, which is the, posher half is built on rock,

and rock communicates these vibrations very thoroughly.

It's a good conductor.

So if you lived in the northern half of Santa Monica,

your house did like that,

and the southern half of Santa Monica is built on sand,

which doesn't conduct it nearly as well.

All of a sudden, the entire room started going

four feet in each direction.

The earth was like, for a lack of a better word,

screaming and moaning

like these giant sounds of, like, the earth grinding.

It was the strangest earthquake because not only was it like,

you had to be walking uphill almost

that the earth was, I mean, it was moving in chunks,

and also it was going from side to side as well.

The whole city's been decimated.

Power's out everywhere and days of, you know,

reconstruction, if you will, putting your life back together.

We could see fires starting up.

I mean, it was really scary.

And it was like being on board ship all that night.

The aftershocks just kept rolling through.

He had enough, he said, "No, that's it.

I can't do this anymore."

And, uh, and he picked up and, uh, moved to, to Nashville.

[Slow piano plays]

I'm sure that, um,

Nicky moving to Nashville was the best thing for him.

It definitely was the best thing for me.

There were people in Nashville that were excited

that Nicky Hopkins had moved to town.

I think we got there about, um, in March of, um, '94.

BOB: Just as they were settling into life in Nashville,

Nicky started to feel unwell.

He asked me to take him to a chiropractor

because he had lower back pain,

and he never had lower back pain.

And, and, um, he said that the chiropractor said,

"I think that perhaps you might want to make an appointment

to see your doctor"

because, uh, he suspected something was wrong.

BOB: Two days later, Nicky and Moira

celebrated Labor Day together.

I was feeling tired. I said, I'm going to go up to bed.

And, uh, he said, "Well,

I'm just gonna stay down for a little while.

I'm, you know..." and, uh, so I went up to bed

and it was about, I guess I, I don't know,

I'd fallen asleep, but I, I heard him yell out,

and I went running downstairs, and he was in excruciating pain.

And, um, I called, uh, an ambulance.

I got him to the hospital,

and they wouldn't give him anything to kill the pain.

They said they had to wait for his doctor to arrive,

and he took his time.

And so, it was too late.

You know, Nicky couldn't take it. His heart gave out.

I just thought I was so lucky, you know,

um, to have the marriage I had.

I had a very, very happy marriage.

And I shared my life with a wonderful,

wonderful person, you know.

[Nostalgic music plays]

Being, you know, a young guy

at the top of his game also battling this, you know,

chronic illness that no one knows anything about.

And it's invisible, it's that people don't really understand.

And I think that is, you know, it's kind of heartbreaking

that, you know, he probably should be still alive right now.

It's important to remember people

who made music popular

and, uh, long lived with their prowess

on an instrument that really does take, uh,

some work and some major talent to master.

And he, he certainly was a master of it.

I think everyone remembers him really fondly, and always have.

And, you know, I miss Nicky a lot.

I can't, I can't really explain just how brilliant he was.

But the reason why we're sitting here today

is because he was an astonishing musician.

The like of which I've never come across since.

And if you are musically inclined

and he had a piano around, he could...

he could entrance you.

We became friends so easily.

It's hard not to be a friend of, of Nicky's.

Nicky was a pure musician,

and his contributions are purely musical.

And I think that that deserves remembering.

I was talking to him about his playing

and, uh, how detailed it was and how precision he was.

And he says, well, I'm Chopin.

And I said, "What?" He said, "Yes,

I'm a reincarnation of Frederick Chopin."

And I said, "Okay..."

And he did more than believe that he was Frederick Chopin.

He knew that he was so positive about that fact

that I just had to believe him.

Nicky did believe, um, that he was Chopin in another life,

and he used to play, um, he listened to a lot of Chopin

and he used to, you know, play on the keyboards,

um, and piano.

If there was a piano around, he'd play Chopin.

And I think that that could very well be the case,

because he was just that talent,

talent on that

high spiritual, uh, classical level.

I think he was.

Reincarnation is to do with human beings.

So it's quite possible what Nicky said is, is true.

But I would've thought that if he was,

if he was Chopin in his last lifetime,

he'd be a bit sick of playing the piano.

I think he'd probably try and be doing something else.

Um, you know. [Laughs]

BOB: Nicky's musical career spanned just over 30 years,

and during that time,

he played with some of the greatest bands in the world.

His contributions on their records

made him rock and roll's greatest Session Man.

[Upbeat piano plays]