Will it go 'round in circles?

[InsaneApache]

What is this? The legends are dropping dead faster than a bluebottle covered in raid.


He contributed to The Beatles' Let it Be, and Rolling Stones records including Exile on Main Street.

At this rate we'll just have American Idols (sic) and X-factor wannabees to mourn...well perhaps not.

When I find myself.... (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5054074.stm)

[GeneralHankerchief]

Well, the ones who survived the inital salvo of overdoses find themselves up against a new, more evil enemy: aging.

As long as Roger Waters stays alive long enough to finish his tour, I'll be happy. :2thumbsup:

R.I.P. Billy Preston.

[Beirut]

Rest in peace Billy.

Loved your work.

[InsaneApache]

I think this just about sums the guy up.


Mr Preston became the only person to be given a label credit alongside The Beatles after his work on the song Let it Be, as well as the Abbey Road and White Album recordings.


A prolific writer, he also wrote You Are So Beautiful, a major hit for his friend, British blues singer Joe Cocker.

And he collaborated with superstars such as The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, The Jackson Five, Sly and the Family Stone and Barbra Streisand.

A sad loss to all of humanity. A sad day for music. May his God go with him. :bow:

[Gregoshi]

Earlier today I happened to play his instrumental "Outta Space". Little did I know I was playing it in tribute. Thanks for the music Billy. :bow:

[InsaneApache]

The obituary from the Times.


Billy Preston
September 9, 1946 - June 6, 2006

Keyboard player whose talent was in demand by many top artists and left him to be dubbed 'the fifth Beatle'

OF ALL the people who have been dubbed “the fifth Beatle”, from early member Stu Sutcliffe, who died before the group’s success, to manager Brian Epstein, Billy Preston made the greatest contribution to the Beatles’ musical oeuvre.

He played keyboards on many of their later releases, including the No 1 hit Get Back, and was among the very few other musicians to be credited on their recordings.



His gospel-tinged piano and organ playing also graced records by Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Sly Stone, Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones among others. In addition he was a highly successful artist in his own right, recording such hits as That’s the Way God Planned It and Will It Go Round in Circles and writing You Are So Beautiful for Joe Cocker.

In later years, his career was derailed by alcohol and drug abuse, and when he fell fatally ill an unseemly fight over his estate broke out between his family and his manager. Yet he remained an in-demand figure among his fellow musicians until the end and was heard on new albums released in 2006 by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Neil Diamond.

Born in Houston, Texas, in 1946, he was a child prodigy who, at the age of 12, appeared in the film St Louis Blues playing the part of the young W. C. Handy. Like so many African-Americans of his generation, the church was the initial centre of his musical activity and by 1958 he was playing organ for gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. By his mid-teens he was playing keyboards for Little Richard and Sam Cooke, two more musicians who had graduated from gospel to the secular pastures of rock’n’roll and R&B.

He first encountered and struck up a friendship with the Beatles while on tour in Europe with Little Richard in 1962. They were then a struggling, unknown group but they would subsequently have a huge influence on his career. Away from his role as a backing musician, he made his solo debut that same year with the album Gospel in My Soul, fusing secular and religious styles much in the fashion of Ray Charles. A second album, 16 Year Old Soul, appeared in 1963 and, after he had signed to the Vee Jay label, albums with titles such as The Most Exciting Organ Ever and The Wildest Organ in Town followed, showcasing his instrumental prowess on such driving tunes as Billy’s Bag.

In 1968, on tour in Britain with Ray Charles, he teamed up with the Beatles again when he was recruited to play organ on their single, Get Back. Over the next two years he went on to play on the albums The Beatles (more usually known as The White Album), Abbey Road and Let It Be, becoming one of the musicians outside the group to be credited on their records. He also played with them at their London rooftop concert in 1969, their final live appearance, which was subsequently featured in the film Let It Be.

By then the Beatles were falling apart and they later paid tribute to how Preston’s good humour had got them through recording sessions when they were barely speaking to each other. He also signed as a solo artist to the Beatles’ label Apple, for whom George Harrison produced Preston’s first British hit single, That’s the Way God Planned It, a storming, rock update on his gospel roots. Three albums for Apple followed and his Beatles connection continued when he played with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the Plastic Ono Band, played on Ringo Starr’s solo records and appeared at Harrison’s Concert for Bangla Desh benefit at Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1971.

After the collapse of Apple, he moved in 1972 to the A&M label, for whom he recorded such hits as Outa Space and Space Race and enjoyed No1 singles with Will It Go Round in Circles in 1973 and Nothing from Nothing the following year.

Heavily in demand as a session musician, he toured extensively with the Rolling Stones and played on their 1970s albums Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock’n’Roll and Black & Blue. He also played with Sly and the Family Stone and the Jackson Five and as a writer penned You Are So Beautiful, a multiplatinum hit for Joe Cocker in 1975 and now a standard in the repertoire of just about every romantic ballad singer in the business.

It was a busy decade for Preston. Film work included Sidney Poitier’s They Call Me Mr Tibbs in 1970, which he scored with Quincy Jones, and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, also featuring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees, in 1978, in which he performed Get Back.

The following year he moved to the Motown label where the sentimental ballad With You I’m Born Again, a duet with the late Syreeta Wright, gave him another big hit. It was his last big success of the 1980s and he spent the rest of the decade in a downward spiral of addiction and related crime. At one point he was convicted of insurance fraud after setting fire to his own house in Los Angeles and lodging a bogus claim.

Spells in rehabilitation facilities ultimately failed to cure him of his addictions, but he found a way to live with them. In the 1990s he returned to the fray, touring with Eric Clapton, recording with a wide range of different artists and becoming musical director of the American television show Nightlife. He also made a cameo appearance in the film Blues Brothers 2000 as part of a supergroup that included Eric Clapton, Stevie Winwood and B. B. King. In 2004 he made a guest appearance on the final album by his mentor Ray Charles and, despite having fallen seriously ill, this year he appeared on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ album Stadium Arcadium and Neil Diamond’s 12 Songs.

Soon after, he slipped into a coma following a failed kidney transplant. While he lay in a hospital bed in Phoenix, Arizona, his three sisters sued his manager, Joyce Moore, claiming they were being prevented from seeing him.

Billy Preston, musician, was born on September 9, 1946. He died on June 6, 2006, aged 59.