The Ghost Of Nicky Hopkins Deserves Better

After waiting like 2 fucking years with endless “oooooh, new trailer!” announcements, The Session Man, the documentary on the late & beyond great Nicky Hopkins, finally arrived and it’s pretty much a dud. I just don’t understand how you could have access to Dave Davies, Shel Talmy, Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, Bill Wyman, and by access I mean they’re sitting there talking with you about Nicky Hopkins, and yet those people added up to MAYBE 5 minutes of the entire thing; like I’m guessing 90% of the people checking out the doc I was watching it because I loved Hopkins’ playing with The Kinks/The Who/The Beatles, and yet this thing couldn’t wait to sprint past all the work he did those incredible albums he played on, the albums that made his name & why we’re even talking about him 30 years after his much-too young death, to get to….Quicksilver Light Messenger? Harry Nilsson? And….who gives a shit who else?

Again, it’s not like you were scrambling to get newspaper clippings from 1964 for content; you had the Stones sitting right there! You had Dave Davies and Shel Talmy right fucking there!! But no, let’s talk about Jerry Garcia instead.

Disappointing. AND there was an overall cheapness to the entire thing, which surprised me since it 1) is the year 2024 2) was years in the making 3) seemed to have financial backing, based on the above (incomplete) guest list in the movie?

Anyway. Disappointing. But that’s not gonna stop me from listening to all the incredible work he did on so many of the albums I love, and it shouldn’t for you either!