By Dennis Hartley
(Orginally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 15, 2025)
Better late than never, I suppose. I was happy to learn that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally got around to acknowledging keyboard legend Nicky Hopkins in last week’s induction ceremonies. One could argue that Hopkins (who died in 1994 at age 50 from surgical complications ) was more a “legend” to peers and musos than to the public at large.
That said, his distinctive flourishes added essential color to classics like “Revolution” by The Beatles, “The Song is Over” and “Getting in Tune” by The Who, “She’s a Rainbow”, “Street Fighting Man”, and “Angie” by The Rolling Stones, “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker, “Imagine” by John Lennon, and “Wooden Ships” by The Jefferson Airplane, to name a few.
Hopkins also did session work on albums by George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Kinks, Cat Stevens, Donovan, Martha Reeves, Peter Frampton, Art Garfunkel, Harry Nilsson, Jennifer Warnes, Graham Parker, et. al., appearing on over 250 albums, all told.
Despite such a busy schedule, he managed to shoehorn in a few official band memberships, most notably with The Jeff Beck Group and The Quicksilver Messenger Service, as well as more short-lived stints with The Jefferson Airplane (performing with them at Woodstock), The Steve Miller Band, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and the one-off supergroup Sweet Thursday (which also featured future Mark-Almond Band vocalist Jon Mark). He also released 3 solo albums; his excellent 1973 effort The Tin Man Was a Dreamer is ripe for rediscovery.
And now Hopkins has received an additional “better late than never” nod, courtesy of Mike Treen’s documentary portrait The Session Man: The story of Nicky Hopkins (opening in UK cinemas November 21, and available now in the U.S. as a pay-per-view watch on various streaming platforms including Amazon Prime, Google Play, VUDU, and Apple TV).
Treen takes a fairly by-the-numbers approach in this low-budget but affable affair, narrated by longtime, dulcet-voiced BBC presenter “Whispering” Bob Harris (a bit of a legend himself). Interviewees include Bill Wyman, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Dave Davies, Pete Townshend, Jorma Kaukonen, Terry Reid, Peter Frampton, Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, Graham Parker, and Harry Shearer (yes-Hopkins even played on a Spinal Tap album!).
Hopkins’ widow Moira speaks quite movingly of his bouts with substance addiction (which he eventually beat) and lifelong health struggles (his chronic Crohn’s disease played a large part in his untimely passing). Also sprinkled throughout are archival interview snippets with Hopkins, as well as performance clips (although I wish there had been more of the latter). All in all, I think fans should be pleased and Hopkins neophytes intrigued enough to take a deeper dive into his catalogue.
In my review of the 2025 documentary Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, I wrote:
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard-although I wish I could.
Allow me to explain.
I was all of 24, living in San Francisco. I didn’t own a VCR (they were exorbitantly priced), so I was still watching the tube in (*shudder*) real time. Perusing the TV Guide one December evening, I was excited to spot Sunset Boulevard on the schedule for 8pm (I believe it was airing on independent Bay Area station KTVU).
For the uninitiated, Gloria Swanson’s turn as a fading, high-maintenance movie queen mesmerizes, William Holden embodies the quintessential noir sap, and veteran scene-stealer Erich von Stroheim redefines the meaning of “droll” in a tragicomic journey down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams (I’ve seen it many times since).
At any rate, I was comfortably ensconced on the couch, really digging the film (despite myriad commercial breaks). Approximately 20 minutes into the broadcast, the station unceremoniously cut away from the film for a news bulletin: former Beatle John Lennon had been shot and killed in New York City.
It was eerie kismet, as the film opens with the shooting death of the protagonist/narrator (played by Holden), and is ultimately a rumination on the dark side of fame.
Being an avid Fabs fan, it kind of harshed my mellow. Still does, actually-whenever the subject comes up.
It’s hard to believe that was 45 years ago (5 years longer than Lennon’s lifespan). Over the ensuing decades, there has certainly been no shortage of documentaries and biopics covering Lennon’s life and work. At this point, I think I’ve seen most of them.
Consequently, one would assume that there are very few secrets, revelations and angles left to explore. Yet, 2025 has seen the release of no less than two new Lennon documentaries (and the year is still young).
Now that the year is not so young (where does the time go?), and I’ve had an opportunity to screen One to One: John & Yoko (which had its HBO/MAX premiere November 14), I can share a few thoughts on yet another documentary about John & Yoko (enough already!).
Well I’ll be damned if co-directors Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void, State of Play, Marley) and Sam Rice-Edwards haven’t assembled a fresh and absorbing take on an oft-told tale…but perhaps not for the reasons you may think.
Using beautifully restored performance footage from John and Yoko’s 1972 Madison Square Garden concert (a benefit for the children who were institutionalized at Staten Island’s Willowbrook facility) as a framing device, Macdonald and Edwards’ film is essentially an encapsulation of the intense sociopolitical turmoil in America from 1971-1973.
This time window encompassed an 18-month period when John and Yoko lived in a small Greenwich Village apartment, which coincided with their increasing political activism (which ultimately got them into hot water with the Nixon administration). Most of the “new” footage concerns John and Yoko’s behind the scenes plans for their “Free the People” tour, which was scrapped after a falling out with Jerry Rubin. The impetus for the 1972 Willowbrook benefit was a TV report by Geraldo Rivera on the shocking conditions in the children’s ward (believe it or not, there was a time when Geraldo was a real journalist).
On a more personal note, 1971-1973 also encompassed my high school years (I graduated in May of 1974), and watching the film triggered memories of witnessing mayhem and discord on Walter Cronkite’s nightly broadcast…images of police beating the shit out of protestors just a couple years my senior, the Attica prison massacre, hijackings, horrific scenes from Vietnam, and the emerging Watergate scandal as Nixon took office for a second term (is it any wonder many of us “of a certain age” entered adulthood with such a cynical worldview?).
The most unexpected takeaway from the documentary were the spooky parallels between then and now, vis a vis the political climate. The massive street protests against Nixon’s reactionary administration (No Kings, anyone?), the tribalism of “hardhats” (essentially the MAGAs of their day) vs. the antiwar protestors (“radical Leftist Democrats!”), footage of George Wallace from a 1972 presidential campaign speech where he goes off on a race-baiting diatribe about how Washington D.C. is (in so many words) a crime-ridden hellhole (sound familiar?).
The icing on the cake is when Nixon sics his justice department on John and Yoko and begins building a case for deportation, essentially as retaliation for their political activism . I mean, could you imagine that kind of thing happening in America in 2025?! Oh, wait…
(One to One: John & Yoko is now on the HBO schedule and available on-demand from MAX)