It's true. Lots of amateur musicians can do that to some degree. Of-course results vary, but it's common.

I'm probably "not even an amateur", whatever that means, and with popular music I can usually play a song (the chords) after hearing it once. Pop music is oftentimes 4-5 chords picked from a well known set of ~7 progressions, without any scale change. I'm not able to hear-play more complex harmonics s.a Jazz, or things like Queen which are not totally trivial.