THE SESSION MAN: NICKY HOPKINS MUSIC DOCUMENTARY FEATURING MICK JAGGER, KEITH RICHARDS, PETER FRAMPTON AND MORE TO BE RELEASED IN NORTH AMERICA ON NOVEMBER 5^TH

 

LEGENDARY SESSION PIANIST NICKY HOPKINS FEATURED ON OVER 250 ALBUMS AND ICONIC SONGS WITH THE ROLLING STONES, THE BEATLES, THE WHO, STEVE MILLER BAND AND MORE

 

The Session Man Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egp63SvF9aU 

 

September 30, 2024 – The Session Man: Nicky Hopkins, a documentary film that tells the story of the prolific virtuoso session pianist Nicky Hopkins, will be released in North America November 5^th on TVOD/PPV on Amazon Prime, additional major platforms and will also be available on DVD in late 2024. For viewing information, please visit www.thesessionmanfilm.com. Featuring commentary from Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Peter Frampton, Pete Townshend and more, The Session Man explores the legendary 30-year career of Nicky Hopkins and his contributions to over 250 albums, including John Lennon’s Imagine, The Who’s My Generation, and countless iconic songs like “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker, “Sympathy For The Devil” by The Rolling Stones and “Revolution” by The Beatles. Directed by Mike Treen, THE SESSION MAN has been shown at festivals in a number of countries, winning awards in London, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Los Angeles and Paris. It is scheduled to be screened in The New Zealand Indie Film Festival and The Albuquerque Film Festival at the end of September.

 

“Nicky Hopkins was a dear friend and iconic piano player. No one had his wonderful touch, feel and choice of notes. I was lucky to have him play on my Somethin’s Happening record. I miss him and listen to him often. He taught me plenty.” – Peter Frampton

 

“THE SESSION MAN film is not a Hollywood biopic, rather a homage to a virtuoso and prolific session pianist. There is a sad irony in that Nicky Hopkins was unknown to the greater public but amongst his peers, he was treated as Rock Royalty. The sheer volume of albums and singles that he contributed on and the testimonials from the star-studded list of interviewees in the film allows me the right to say that Nicky’s story deserves to reach a wide audience worldwide. As Bob Lefsetz succinctly put it, ‘The Session Man” is a link in your education. It fills holes in your mental history of rock and roll. Which revolutionized society, impacted an entire generation, music was the coolest medium, it drove the culture and Nicky was there, not on the periphery, but audible on some of your favorite records.’” – Director Mike Treen

 

Classically trained at The Royal Academy of Music, London, Nicky Hopkins could play Rock and Roll piano like nobody else. His legendary piano riffs and dazzling musical motifs helped ordinary tracks become iconic. With a career spanning 30 years until his tragic early death at age 50, he played with some of the greatest bands and artists in the world including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Steve Miller Band, Joe Cocker, Jerry Garcia, Art Garfunkel and many others.

 

By the late 1960’s, Nicky was one of the busiest and most successful session players in London. He then joined the Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, which took him to America. He settled in Mill Valley enjoying the free-wheeling San Francisco ‘Bay Area Bands’ and playing at Woodstock with Jefferson Airplane. The 1970’s were his most successful period, commuting across The Atlantic to play with The Stones, John Lennon, and on countless sessions in Los Angeles.

 

Living with Crohn’s disease since his teens, his ability to tour was limited, although he would manage tours with The Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker and Art Garfunkel. But it was in the recording studio where he became a legend amongst his peers. As Keith Richards recounts, “We were coming up with songs that [were]absolutely beyond Stu’s- let alone capabilities-his dreams! He didn’t want to know! So, I think that Stu called and said, ‘The only guy that can handle this is Nicky Hopkins.’” Nicky ended up playing on a total of 14 Stones albums.

 

Nicky’s story is told in the film by Albert Lee, Antonia Cipollina, Arthur Rochester, Benmont Tench, Bill Wyman, Billy Nicholls, Bro Paul Brown, Chris Kimsey, Chris Welch, Chuck Leavell, Dave Davies, Glyn Johns, Graham Parker, Gray Levett, Greg Phillinganes, Harry Shearer, Helen O’Hara, Jack Casady, Jim Keltner, Joe Tansin, John Goddard, Jorma Kaukonen, Julian Dawson (Nicky’s biographer – author of And on Piano… Nicky Hopkins), Keith Richards, Merrell Fankhauser, Mick Jagger, Mike Hurst, Mike McCartney, Moira Hopkins (Nicky’s widow), Morgan Fisher, Nils Lofgren, Paddy Milner, Pete Edmonds, Pete Sears, Pete Townshend, Peter Frampton, PP Arnold, Rory Kaplan, Sarah Sleet (CEO of Crohn’s & Colitis UK), Shel Talmy, Slim Jim Phantom, Terry Reid and Tom Speight.

 

The Session Man’s narrator, Bob Harris, former presenter of the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, had no hesitation in confirming that, “His contributions on their records made him Rock and Roll’s greatest Session Man.”

 

The Session Man Online:

Official Website: www.thesessionmanfilm.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/thenickyhopkins

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thenickyhopkins

Twitter/X: www.twitter.com/thenickyhopkins

 

The Session Man Press Contacts:

Lauren Mele

Beachwood Entertainment Collective

Lauren@Beachwood.LA

 

Jean Sievers

Beachwood Entertainment Collective

Jean@Beachwood.LA

• Rolling Stone magazine: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/played-beatles-rolling-stones-documentary-150000850.html
• People magazine: https://people.com/john-lennon-s-jealous-guy-piano-player-almost-in-spinal-tap-8733348
• The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/06/nicky-hopkins-pianist-rolling-stones-who-beatles
• BBC World Service (Mike Treen interview): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC8IUIxOg8M&t=167s

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A Robo-lution on the Strawberry Field Sustainable crop growing with fewer sources and without using chemical products is the future trend in agriculture. Robots play a crucial role in this scenario. But training, programming, controlling and maintaining robots can quickly become complex. And this is exactly where Siemens comes in. But first things first: strawberries. The path of a strawberry from the tiny seed in the greenhouse to the sweet fruit on the supermarket shelf is long and winding. It involves many steps and a lot of manual labor. Or rather it did. In their approach of revolutionizing strawberry harvesting with robotics Ráječek farm uses two types of robots to make farming strawberries easier and more sustainable: The Fravebot Scout for monitoring plant health and ripeness The Fravebot Harvestor for picking the fruit “Dividing work tasks between two robot types is beneficial in many aspects,” explains Vratislav Beneš, the chief constructor at Fravebot. “The Scouts, whose primary task is to monitor plants, move around the greenhouses faster, and if they were to do some other work simultaneously, it would delay them. It is the other way round – working robots work effectively in cases where they drive out only where they are needed.   The Fravebot Harvestor picking fresh fruit The digital farm On top of the robots a digital twin environment by NVIDIA is key on the Ráječek farm. It helps develop, simulate, and deploy an AI that is meant to be the robots brain. Thanks to their training using the digital twin of plants and fruits in the NVIDIA Omniverse the robots are able to detect diseases and pests is the real world. The interface between real and digital world comes from Siemens: the Siemens Xcelerator. As today’s simulation tools can also simulate physical laws (e.g., the weight of strawberries), the robot’s neural networks can be trained in advance without the need to move around the real environment. This approach significantly accelerates the robot development process and reduces costs. “I think that is the main path to follow: not to focus merely on the robotic part but also analytics and the user interface for plant growers,” emphasises Matěj Sklenář from the Sklenář family, who own the Ráječek farm. Thanks to a technology library robot programming and control is easier than ever eliminating the need to have two programming environments. Which means the combination between the real and the digital worlds is closer and simpler than ever.   Digital technology, real delight. Smart harvest on the horizon Robotic farmers offer a wide array of applications. Besides strawberries and tomatoes, robots can be used to grow and harvest other crop plants, but also ornamental plants, mainly of flowers whose appearance and integrity matter most. The only restriction is the need for a greenhouse infrastructure, i.e., tracks on which the robot moves. With the emergence and the proliferation we will see more and more farms make the most of the combination of data, AI, and robotics. Hence laying the foundation for truly smart and sustainable farming.   The team of Siemens, Ráječek farm, and Fravebot revolutionizing the way we harvest  This article was initially published on SiemensPress.cz       Join the conversation

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