Nicky Hopkins

And he toured with the Rolling Stones for years.

Nicky Hopkins was the quiet genius whose piano graced records by the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, and dozens more, one of those players who made everybody else sound better.

None of these guys were the star, and that's exactly the point of this whole episode.

The keyboard players are the generous ones, the foundation builders, the people making the magic happen from the middle of the arrangement while the singer and the guitarist take the bows.

Think about the organ and piano in Southern rock and blues rock.

The Allman Brothers had Greg Allman, playing this growling soulful hammond b3 organ that was central to their whole sound and later chuck lavelle joined on piano and gave them that beautiful rolling piano listen to the instrumental jessica that's piano driven joy the keys stepping right out front and leading the band The Rolling Stones had a not-so-secret weapon in Ian Stewart, a fantastic boogie-woogie piano player who played on their records for years.

Leon Russell, Nicky Hopkins, Elton John, in his rootsy moments, a whole generation of rock keyboard players were pouring barrel house, boogie, and gospel piano into rock music.

So the keys never left.

And the way he sang that, and the way...

And then Nicky Hopkins, who was o- was one of the most soulful-

Yeah

... badass keyboard guys on the planet, was playing.

What are you planning to do with all these records?

Mark, have you seen that, um, documentary about Nicky Hopkins, The Session Man on Amazon?

No, I've not.

I'd love to see it though.

Uh, uh, uh, was, uh, was it any good?

It's kind of all right.

It, it suffers from the fact that, uh, unlike Oasis, you know, Nicky Hopkins lived in an age when, uh, not absolutely everything you did was captured by a camera, you know? [chuckles] So, you know, we probably know that Nicky Hopkins, the famous piano player who, who distinguished records by The Rolling Stones, and then The Kinks, and The Who, and The Beatles, and loads of people.

And, uh, y- there is one great extraordinary sequence of him in that, uh, in that film, Sympathy for the Devil one-on-one, which was made in the late '60s where they filmed The Rolling Stones with Nicky Hopkins in Olympic Studios in Barnes actually doing Sympathy for the Devil, actually doing the proper recording.

He was famous for overseeing Bob Dylan's transition to electric rock, as well as signing the Velvet Underground and also the Mothers of Invention.

Nicky Hopkins passed away in 1994 at the age of 50 from intestinal surgery complications and also Crohn's disease.

He was rock history's most prominent session pianist.

He contributed iconic piano parts on a bunch of tracks by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and The Who.

But it did include David Freiberg on bass and vocals, John Cipollina on lead guitar, Gary Duncan on guitar and vocals, and Greg Elmore on drums.

And lastly, it's worth mentioning that this is the only band which the great session pianist slash keyboardist Nicky Hopkins ever officially joined.

First, in case you're unfamiliar, let's talk about their musical style for a second.

Quicksilver Messenger Service is a psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco.

I almost said Hugh Jackman.

And Nicky Hopkins.

Wolverine.

Yes, Wolverine shredding it, literally.

Nicky Hopkins on piano on one song, and that is Revolution.

And the great Billy Preston playing electric piano on Don't Let Me Down, which is one of the songs on side two.

The personnel is insane for this record.

He just works with everybody and everybody accepts him as an equal.

I would put him in line with Nicky Hopkins and to a certain extent even with Billy Preston, although Billy Preston could get more showy when he wanted to.

Yes.

Billy Preston was probably kind of a combination of Jesse Ed and Taj Mahal.