Green Plaque Recognition For Perivale Musician

Pianist Nicky Hopkins played with many greats and on 14 Rolling Stones albums

He worked with The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones, but very few people know who he is.

Perivale musician Nicky Hopkins immense contribution to rock ‘n’ roll is beginning to be recognised, with a green plaque from the Ealing Civic Society set to be fixed on the wall of his childhood home.

Finding his plaque though, will be a little like knowing the man’s achievements – you have to know where to look.

Just as musos have to read the small print on the back of album covers to discover the pianist's contribution, they will have to walk down a sleepy suburban street in Perivale to find the plaque.

It will be unveiled on October 19 at 38 Jordan Road, where he lived from 1944 to 1947.

John Wood has made it his mission to wake people up to Hopkins’ contribution, first having a memorial ‘piano’ bench put together in Perivale Park in September last year, and now trying to get him inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He said: “Everyone knows what he sounds like, because he’s on some of the biggest rock songs everybody knows from the 60s, 70s and 80s.”

These include John Lennon’s Imagine album, and She’s a Rainbow and Angie by the Rolling Stones, 

“He played with the Kinks, Jefferson Airplane, he played at Woodstock. The list is really endless,” said John.

“He was on 14 of the Rolling Stones albums – so that’s quite a contribution.”

The band, Mr Wood said, would go on to pay for his hospital bills at the end of his life.

Mr Wood never actually met the man, but met many of his friends 

“More and more people tell me what an amazing person he was – an incredible musician but more than that. Everyone loves him.

“He would always just be the guy in the background and never boast about how clever he was or anything.”

Mr Wood has also managed to acquire funding for a Royal Academy music scholarship in Mr Hopkin’s name – the school the musician himself attended.

The event will kick off at 3pm with the plaque unveiled by Hopkin’s widow Moira, and is planned to finish around 4pm.

Ged Cann, Local Democracy Reporter

September 24th 2019