88s AND HEARTBREAK
From Let It Bleed’s Monkey Man to Lennon’s Jealous Guy and beyond, magical keysman lifelong illness to blend the blues with the baroque. As a new film explores his life and work, his famous fans offer thanks and praise. NICK Y HOPKINS battled “We’re talking about a genius here,” they tell MARK PAYTRESS.
Keys to the heart: (from left) Nicky Hopkins in Los Angeles, 1975; a moustached Hopkins and trumpeter Jim Price (right) outside their hotel in Newcastle at the start of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Good-Bye Britain’ tour, Hopkins’ first with the band, March 4, 1971.
TWO THINGS dominated Nicky Hopkins’ life: his passion and extraordinary gift for music, and the digestive disorder that would eventually kill him. His contribution to popular music, in the face of an illness that for years went unexplained, is enormous. “He would add melodies where there were none, create amazing introductions to songs and embellish them as only he could,” former Stones bassist Bill Wyman tells MOJO. “We’re talking about a genius here.”
Born in Perivale, Middlesex in 1944, Hopkins showed an early predilection for the piano, fiddling with the keys at three, taking lessons at six and attending the Royal Academy Of Music from 11 to 16.
His gift for and knowledge of classical music blossomed during his teenage years, but once he’d heard Fats Domino’s Ain’t That A Shame, he also immersed himself in the R&B and boogie-woogie of Black America. The two traditions would become the cornerstones of Hopkins’ work: a secret weapon deployed by ’60s pop’s biggest names – The Beatles, the Stones, The Kinks, The Who and more.