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Remembering Nicky Hopkins… Waiting for the Band
Written by Jimmy
Was reading a book review on the autobigraphy of Nicky Hopkins. I had never hear of him; he’s viewed as one of the best session musicians of the sixties/seventies. writing/performing most the keyboard tracks on: Beatles, Revolution; Kinks, Sunny Afternoon; Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed Session; The Who, My Generation; Jefferson Airplane, Volunteers; John Lennon, Jeolous Guy; George Harrisons, Give Me Love, Give Me Life (Give Me Peace on Earth) and assorted songs for Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, Grateful Dead, Carly Simon, Jeff Beck, etc… Goodnesss.
Here’s a couple nice write ups: Here and Here.
Having just finished reading Keith Richards autobiography, Life, I was quite intriqued to learn that a subset of the Stones (Jagger, Watts and Wyman ), did an album with Nicky as a side project during the Let It Bleed Sessions (Richards was I think smacked out during most of this). So I listened to the album, Jamming with Edward. Is it only me, I thought, or are the seeds of Midnight Rambler planted in The Budoir Stamp (Keith said Jagger was one of the most under-rated blues harp players of the sixites and you can here the Midnight Rambler solo forming here (both songs done the same month). Of course, I’m not the first to discover this, as it was mentioned at the time: click here.
But it is one of those things, where I discovered it for myself, which is always fun.
Here’s The Budoir Stomp:
And here’s Midnight Rambler:
And here’s Nicky’s own, Waiting for the Band…. which for a musician who never got the credit he deserved and never found the ‘one band’ that would confirm his place in music, seems apt, seems sadly appropriate.
And here’s Edward the Mad Shirt Grinder, perhaps his best known song.
Jimmy