Billy Preston, 59, Organist Charted Funky Hits

Billy Preston, who died yesterday at 59,played keyboards for the Beatles and Rolling Stones before scoring a string of infectiously funky pop hits in the 1970s, including “Will It Go Round in Circles” and “Nothing From Nothing.”Preston maintained a fevered creative pace through the 1980s. Preston started out in the late 1950s as a child prodigy who led a gospel church choir at age 10, backed Mahalia Jackson, and played W.C. Handy in the 1958 biopic “St. Louis Blues.”Beginning in the early 1960s, he toured with Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Sly Stone, and was a prominent presence on the Rolling Stones’s albums “Sticky Fingers” (1971) and “Exile on Main Street” (1972). He was among the most active sidemen of his generation, and worked with Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, and Quincy Jones – with whom he scored the film “They Call Me Mr. Tibbs” (1970). He also wrote the much-covered weeper “You Are So Beautiful,” originally a hit for Joe Cocker in 1974.Preston was a vibrant and joyous presence in public, sporting an almost comically outsized Afro and outrageous costumes, while playing his Hammond B-3. But there was a dark side, and beginning in 1991, he was arrested multiple times on charges of drug abuse, sexually assaulting young men he had hired as gardeners on his Topanga Canyon ranch, and insurance fraud. Multiple stints in rehab proved to be ineffective, but a four-year jail sentence apparently straightened him out enough for him to return to touring.Preston grew up in Los Angeles. His parents were divorced when he was young, and his mother worked as a secretary in a funeral home and was a church organist. She was also an actress who appeared on the radio show “Amos ‘n’ Andy.”Preston learned to play the piano at age 3, and by age 10, he was conducting his mother’s church choir. Little Richard hired him when he was still in high school for his 1962 tour of England, where Preston first met the Beatles as Little Richards’s opening act. Sam Cooke was on the same tour, and Preston backed Cooke on his hit “Little Red Rooster.” In 1963, he recorded his first album, “Sixteen Year Old Soul” for Cooke’s record label.Preston subsequently released “The Most Exciting Organ Ever” (1964) and “Wildest Organ in Town” (1966), produced by Sly Stone.In 1969, he was recruited by George Harrison to play on the Beatles’ “Let It Be” album, meant to herald the group’s return to live performance. Preston’s emphatic playing on the song “Get Back” remained a career highlight and a testament to what could have been. Preston was the only non-Beatle ever credited on one of the group’s albums, and ever afterward claimed the mantle of “The Fifth Beatle.”The Beatles subsequently disintegrated, but Preston released albums on Apple Records and played on solo projects with Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and John Lennon, beginning with Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. He later played Sergeant Pepper in the ill-conceived film “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1978). Preston also was part of Harrison’s 1971 “Concert For Bangladesh.” He would continue to be involved with various Beatles until the end of his career, including stints with Ringo’s “All-Starr” tours and an appearance at the memorial “Concert for George Harrison” at Royal Albert Hall in 2001, where his rendition of “My Sweet Lord” was a sensation. Gospel remained a touchstone throughout his career.Preston helped define the funk organ sound of the mid-1970s with hits like “Outa Space” (which won a best instrumental Grammy in 1973) and “Space Race.” He charted more conventionally with “With You I’m Born Again” (1979), a duet with Syreeta Wright. But his career stalled in the 1980s while his drug dependency deepened. During a stint as music director of David Brenner’s short-lived 1986 variety show, “I would take a hit and go on national TV high,” he told People in 1992.In 1989, he was twice hospitalized for heart seizures attributable to cocaine use, and was also arrested twice for driving drunk. He told People that his chemical problems were attributable to life on the road. “I wanted to keep the high that I felt onstage. After the crowds go home, you are left alone. Especially when you travel, there is no one there for you.” After convictions on assault and sexual battery (he was accused of attacking a gardener in Preston’s trademark white Rolls), and drug possession were compounded by parole violations and insurance fraud, the stresses of the road were no longer a problem for Preston. At California’s Avenal State Prison, he led a chorus and performed at church services. After serving 18 months of a four-year sentence, he apparently stayed clean. He was beginning a tour with Eric Clapton when he got the bad news about his kidneys. At his death, his family was involved in a messy court battle over the conservatorship of his estate.William Everett PrestonBorn September 9, 1946, in Houston, Texas; died June 6 at a Scottsdale, Ariz., care facility where he had been in a coma due to kidney disease; survived by sisters, Lettie Preston, Rodena Preston, and Gwendolyn Preston.

Billy Preston, 59, Organist Charted Funky Hits

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