Billy Preston - The 'Fifth Beatle' - Dead at 59
The great singer-songwriter and performer Billy Preston died Tuesday at age 59 after a long illness as a result of malignant hypertension that resulted in kidney failure and other complications. He had been in a deep coma since last November, still struggling to recover. He died at Shea Scottsdale Hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona where he'd lived for the last couple of years.
Billy Preston & Vonzell Solomon
perform "With You I'm Born Again"
on the American Idol Season 4 finale .....
Billy Preston was called the "Fifth Beatle" because he played keyboards on Let it Be, The White Album and Abbey Road. He also played on the Rolling Stones's hit song "Miss You" and often played with Eric Clapton. He also did the organ work on Sly & the Family Stone's greatest hits. Preston's own hits included "Nothing from Nothing," "Will it Go Round in Circles," and "You Are So Beautiful," which Joe Cocker turned into an international hit.
Preston was actually mentored by Ray Charles and acts like Little Richard, Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland had a huge impact on him at a young age. In the early 60s, he went to Europe with Little Richard who playing in Hamburg. The Beatles were the opening act and as the story goes he was the one who made sure they got fed.
His friendship with them lasted through the 1960s and he was the first act signed to Apple Records thanks to George Harrison. The resulting album is called That's the Way God Planned It. In 1971, Preston played in "The Concert for Bangla Desh." Last year, in one of his final appearances, he performed at a renuion in Los Angeles for the release of the Bangladesh DVD with Ringo and Harrison's son Dhani on guitar.
As "Sgt. Pepper" in
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band .....
More recently, Billy can be heard on the latest albums by Neil Diamond and Red Hot Chili Peppers. He's also featured on the Starbucks soul album "Believe to My Soul" featuring Mavis Staples and Ann Peebles.
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It's well known that he played keyboard with the Beatles on Let It Be, but he is also associated with the history of the Beatles in many ways over the years.
Billy Preston was born on September 9, 1946 in Houston Texas. At age twelve he had a cameo role in a film about W.C. Handy, St. Louis Blues, in which he played the composer as a child. Already an established keyboard session player in America, then fifteen year old Billy Preston first met the Beatles in 1962 in Hamburg while he was touring with Little Richard. Because of their closeness in ages, he and George Harrison became close friends. Billy got to spend much time with the Beatles and see them perform during this exciting time.
Billy went on to play keyboards for Sam Cooke, and also in the band on the Shindig TV show. His first charting record was an instrumental gospel album, The Most Exciting Organ Ever, for Vee Jay records in 1966. This is another interesting parallel in the careers of Billy Preston and the Beatles, as Vee Jay was also still releasing Beatles records in the U.S. at this time.
The next time he toured Britain, this time with Ray Charles, he and George met up again, and the Beatles decided to buy his recording contract from Vee Jay and sign him to their new Apple label.
At the time, the Beatles were heavily into the making of Let It Be, which was becoming a very unhappy chore because of tensions in the group. George brought Billy in to play keyboards on some of the tracks, as the orginal idea of Let It Be was to be a "live" recording with no overdubbing, which left none of them to add things like a keyboard part. But, George also hoped that bringing in an outsider would make the others behave nicer and make the Let It Be set a happier place to be, and it worked, albeit temporarily. The Get Back single was credited as "The Beatles with Billy Preston", the first time another artist was credited on a Beatles record, gaining him the title in some circles as "the fifth Beatle". In addition, although you can barely see it in the Let It Be movie, Billy played with the group on the famous "Rooftop Concert", the Beatles last live appearance together.
George Harrison co-produced two albums for Apple with Billy, and in addition to playing guitar on some of the tracks himself, had some friends come in to play as well, including Klaus Voormann, Keith Richard, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton. Billy's relationship with the Beatles continued even after their breakup. Billy performed with George at the Concert for Bangla Desh at Madison Square Garden, and played on these George Harrison albums: All Things Must Pass, Extra Texture, Dark Horse and 33 1/3. He also played on John's Plastic Ono Band and Sometime in New York City albums, and with Ringo on the Ringo and Goodnight Vienna albums.
Billy had many gold singles in the early seventies, including Will It Go 'Round In Circles (the flip-side of which is pictured above), Nothing From Nothing and Outa Space, which also won the Grammy as Best Pop Instrumental. In 1975 he wrote You Are So Beautiful, which became a big hit for Joe Cocker and he also toured with the Rolling Stones. And in 1978, Billy Preston's Beatles connection came full circle as he appeared with the Bee Gees in the title role of Robert Stigwood's movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, music produced by George Martin.