I think my first exposure to Billy Preston would be the tune ‘Billy’s Bag’ which the DJ Peter ‘PY the Pork Pie’ Young would have introduced me to on his Capital Radio show in around, I’d guess, the early 80s. It’s a cracking Hammond organ driven tune and one I have always been very fond of. With hindsight, I’m sure I would have been aware of him being up on the roof with The Beatles for the Savile Row performance in 1969, but that would have been the extent of my knowledge on him and his music.

Subsequently, I tracked down a lot of his music, with two of his tracks ‘That’s The Way God Planned It’ and ‘Will It Go Round In Circles’ becoming particular favourites of mine, in my club running and DJ days of the mid to late 1990s.

Of course, in recent months, Billy and his career have been fully re-evaluated due the ‘Get Back’ TV series on the Disney Channel and his part in all that ‘FABness’ and it’s now good to see his music being passed around the internet as a result.

William Everett Preston was born in September 1946 in Houston Texas, eventually relocating with his mum Robbie, to Los Angeles as she worked and toured in musical theatre. Recognised as a child prodigy, young Billy was playing piano and directing church choirs whilst still a youngster, despite never having a music lesson. This self-taught wonder kid was by the tender age of ten, playing organ behind highly respected Gospel singers such as Mahalia ‘Halie’ Jackson and he worked alongside Nat King Cole aged just 11.

Whilst on tour with his mother however, Billy was sexually abused by a musician in the touring party and this was later compounded by further abuse by a local pastor. He reported this to his mother, but she chose either not to believe hm, or just to ignore it.

Putting all that to one side, he found his musical talents in constant demand. In Hamburg in 1962, he was working in Little Richards band aged just 15, after Richard had discovered Billy at his high school. It was on this trip to Germany, that he first met The Beatles. Next, he worked with Sam Cooke in 1965, and then released his debut album, entitled ‘The Most Exciting Organ Ever’ (stop sniggering at the back) in 1967, before he joined the band of Ray Charles.

It was whilst in the UK, touring with Charles, that he was spotted in the band by George Harrison and then invited to pop in to see The Beatles recording  the ‘Let It Be’ album, in their Savile Row studio. This he did, with his gap-toothed smile, seemingly, instantly calming the prevailing tensions that were brewing between the band.

He was soon playing organ and piano on their recordings, fitting in very nicely with both the band, and the music they were creating. At one point, there seemed the real possibility that he would be asked to join the band, with Lennon all for it, but failing to convince McCartney, who expressed that  it was hard enough for the four of them to agree to anything anyway and besides, they were in the process of breaking up as it was.

Of course, as we all know, he ended up on the roof for that last ever final public performance by them as a four. The single ‘Get Back’ released in April 1969, has Billy Preston credited on it and he would later play a more limited role on the 1969 Album ‘Abbey Road’ popping up on both ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy) and ‘Something.’

Billy also signed to the Apple label and would go on to record and  release an album produced by George Harrison, with its title track ‘That’s the Way God Planned It’ becoming a sizeable  hit single in the UK. George stayed close to Billy after the Beatles ‘divorce’ and he would go on to play on George’s solo album ‘All Things Must Pass,’ and at the ‘Concert for Bangladesh’ in 1971.

Keeping it in the family as it were,  he also toured with Ringo.

After leaving Apple, he signed to A&M and his famous remark of ‘If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with’ inspired  Stephen Stills to write the resulting epic song of the same name around it, in 1970.

Billy reached the top three Stateside  in 1972 with ‘Outa Space’ for which he picked up the Grammy for ‘Best Pop Instrumental’ and  sales of a over a million in the process. He then topped the charts with ‘Will It Go Round in Circles’ in 1973, at a time when both he and his backing band – ‘The God Squad’ – had some of the finest Afros in town.

As well as working up his own material, he also played on the Rolling Stones albums, ‘Sticky Fingers’ ‘Exile on Main Street’ ‘Goats Head Soup’ ‘Its Only Rock and Roll’ and ‘Black and Blue.’

He then joined Motown from A&M and  went top ten with a duet with Syreeta on ‘With You I’m Born Again’ and he then co-wrote ‘You Are  So Beautiful’  in honour of his mother, with the song becoming a huge hit for singer Joe Cocker in 1974. Then the successes in his career, began to slow down, and he left Motown in 1978.

Unsurprisingly, he is then badly affected by finding his fiancé Kathy Silva in flagrante with close friend Sly Stone. Her and Sly then marry on stage at Madison Square Gardens a while later.
The trauma of all this, sends Billy off into a drug fuelled decline, and he finally lets out his homosexual tendencies from the closet, at least privately.

Career wise, the 80s find him in effect a session man, working with the likes of Luther Vandross, Patti La Belle and Whitney Houston. He also works with Eric Clapton and  joins The Band for a short period, before being arrested for sex and drug offences in 1991. He was already on probation for drink/driving  and these new charges result in him going into rehab for nine months and then living under house arrest for a further three months. However, the spiral down continues. He spends 30 days in jail in 1992 for a further drink driving conviction and then is sentenced to three years for cocaine possession, which was eventually reduced to 90  days under terms of  agreeing to remain drug free. Then 1998 finds him caught up in a fraud case after pleading guilty to setting fire to his own home in an insurance scam, for which he served 18 months of a four-year term.

Having finally cleaned up his  act after that little lot, he appears in London at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the life of George Harrison following his passing in late 2001, at the star studded ‘Concert for George,’ performing alongside Paul McCartney, Ringo, Andy Fairweather Low, Jeff Lynne and Eric Clapton.

Billy performs ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘Isn’t it a Pity.’

Back in the US, his diverse career continued, working with Norah Jones, Johnny Cash, the Funk Brothers, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Neil Diamond and touring with Eric Clapton.

Sadly though, illness was now a daily part of his life and he had a kidney transplant in 2002. Despite that, his health declined, and he died in June 2006 in Arizona, aged just 59.

At his funeral, performances we’re led by Joe Cocker and Merry Clayton in person with tributes read out from Little Richard, Paul McCartney, The Stones and Eric Clapton.

Mick Jagger – ‘Billy was a fantastic and gifted musician. He was great fun to be with … and I will miss him a lot.’

Elton John – (he was) one of my true inspirations, one of the greatest keyboard players of all time and not too shabby a vocalist either.’

Little Richard – ‘He made that piano walk and talk, there’s nobody in this world who could play the piano like Billy Preston.’

 

The Mumper of SE5

 

THE SPEAKEASY VOLUME 1

THE SPEAKEASY Volume One by Mark Baxter (The Mumper)

Illustrations by Lewis Wharton

Foreword by Gary Crowley

Available to ORDER here

 

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