Hopkins -- who died at the age of 50 in 1994, tragically -- was hands down the greatest piano player in the history of rock, but I must confess that I was unaware of the above album untill last week; Wikipedia doesn't even include it in his solo discography. I should add that it was produced by Shel Talmy, with whom Hopkins worked on innumerable records by The Who and The Kinks , but I have been unable to discover who wrote the fabulous string arrangement.
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https://www.discogs.com/Nicky-Hopkins-The-Revolutionary-Piano-Of-Nicky-Hopkins/release/3650220
Steve,
The strings on the album were played by the Mike Sammes Orchestra and the conductor was a gent named David Whitaker (thank you, Discogs!). So probably Sammes or Whitaker (or Hopkins himself) wrote the arrangement; unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a definitive answer yet. Whitaker, by the way, had extensive credits working with British pop and rock artists; among them, Marianne Faithfull and Cat Stevens.
That's one gorgeous album cover, and Sal's spot on with Discogs. Sometimes the release date on Discogs is a year off, but it's much better a source than Wikipedia, which can't get pro wrestlers right all the time.
What a brilliant musician. His short piano fill just prior to the outro of “The Song Is Over” still sends chills up my spine, nearly 50 years later...
Agreed. Best song on Who's Next. Because of him.
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