final credits - billy preston
He had a career that can only be described as star-studded, and "sideman" -- even "Fifth Beatle" -- seems too slight a credit to apply to Billy Preston.
His was a life both magic and tragic.
Preston died June 6th, 2006 at the age of 59.
Malignant hypertension resulting in kidney failure was the ultimate cause, and he spent the last half-year of his recently-troubled life in a coma.
Born William Everett Preston in Houston, Texas in 1946, Billy and his family soon moved to Los Angeles after his parents split up.
His mother, Ernestine Wade, became the organist for the Victory Baptist Church and was also an actress (as Sapphire Stevens on the "Amos 'n' Andy" TV series of the early 1950s).
Unnaturally gifted, Preston started playing piano at the age of three. By the time he was 10, he was featured on television shows.
In 1956 Preston was playing organ in church for Mahalia Jackson when a film producer saw him and cast Preston as the young W.C. Handy in the film "St. Louis Blues." The 1958 film starred Nat King Cole as the older Handy. Also on the set were Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway and Pearl Bailey.
Preston loved the music of Ray Charles and he found out the singer lived close to his school. He would practice Charles's pieces with his eyes closed.
One day he knocked on his mentor's door and told him that he was going to be the next Ray Charles. Charles advised him to be himself.
Ray Charles later said, "This man is gonna take my place."
By the late 1950S, the notorious rock 'n' roll singer Little Richard left music to become a minister.
In 1962 he was convinced to tour the UK, headlining under Sam Cooke on what was supposed to be a gospel tour. Richard recruited Preston as his organist and he left school to join the show.
Early in the tour, Richard would perform gospel songs while opening for Cooke but he saw it was Cooke who excited the crowds. Richard then literally changed his tunes and launched into his trademark classics such as "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally."
Preston had never played rock 'n' roll before but had no difficulty with the transition. It was the first glimpse of his versatility, and for Preston it was his first taste of rock 'n' roll life.
After the tour, Little Richard played in Europe and they met the Beatles at the Star-Club in Hamburg. Preston made friends with the Liverpool lads and one story had it that Billy was the one who made sure they got fed. It would be another seven years before they would cross paths again.
Sam Cooke, impressed by Preston's skill, signed him to his own record label. Preston released "Sixteen Year Old Soul," his first album, in 1963. Cooke also used Preston on his own album "Night Beat."
In the mid-1960s, a touring British beat group, Sounds Incorporated, heard Preston playing at a club in Los Angeles and recommended him to television producer Jack Good. Good was behind the TV show "Shindig" and he signed Preston up to play with the house band.
When Ray Charles appeared on the show, Preston took his place at rehearsals to perform "Georgia on My Mind." Charles was so impressed he asked Preston to join his orchestra.
Preston was featured on the Charles album "Crying Time," playing on the title track and the single "Let's Go Get Stoned". Preston was also part of the all-star line-up on the Everly Brothers' 1965 album "Beat'n'Soul."
Preston's next solo album, on Vee-Jay (the label that first released Beatles records in the U.S.), had the unbelievable title "The Most Exciting Organ Ever!" The 1965 album was co-arranged with Sly Stone. The following year Preston release "The Most Exciting Organ Ever."
In 1967 Preston's UK single "Billy's Bag" was a party favourite and caught the ear of Stevie Wonder.
George Harrison saw Preston play with Ray Charles and had him signed as the first act for Apple Records. The resulting album was called "That's The Way God Planned It."
Harrison produced the 1969 album with Eric Clapton playing guitar, Keith Richards on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. The title song became a Top-Twenty hit.
The follow-up album, "Encouraging Words," included the first version of Harrison's song "My Sweet Lord", with Preston performing with the Edwin Hawkins Singers.
The late 1960s saw the Beatles at loose ends with each other. Struggling through the recording and filming of the "Let It Be" album, Harrison brought in Preston hoping an outsider would settle the sessions down.
With Preston playing a Fender Rhodes elecric piano, the Beatles recorded "Get Back" and were so impressed that the single was billed as "The Beatles with Billy Preston" -- the only shared credit in the Beatles catalogue.
Preston performed the song with the band on its legendary "roof top" concert, the last time the Beatles played live. The title of "The Fifth Beatle" soon stuck, and Preston did not discourage the reference.
Preston (standing to left of door at top) later described the event.
"I was playing a Fender Rhodes on 'Get Back,' and they just told me, 'Take a solo!' I wasn't expecting to do a solo."
"When we were rehearsing, I wasn't playing a solo. To my surprise, when the record came out, they put my name on the record. So that was a real blessing."
"They made me feel like a member of the band. Musically, my favourite moment was on the roof for 'Let It Be.' "
It was said John Lennon wanted Preston to join the Beatles permanently.
He played on several tracks for their final album, "Abbey Road" in 1969, including Harrison's "Something," and the songs "Don't Let Me Down," "Let It Be," and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."
He later worked with Lennon and Ringo Starr on their solo projects but immediately joined Harrison for his hugely successful solo debut "All Things Must Pass."
In 1971 Preston was part of the all-star band for the charity event and album "Concert For Bangla Desh" with Harrison, Starr, Leon Russell and Eric Clapton. He won a Grammy for his contribution and nearly stole the show with his performance of "That's The Way God Planned It."
Soon others wanted Preston to work his magic with them. He played with the Rolling Stones performing on "Sticky Fingers" in 1971 and "Exile on Main Street" the next year.
Preston toured with the Stones in 1975 and would have continued working for them but for a dispute over fees and song credits. They reunited in 1997 for the "Bridges To Babylon" recording.
Preston was deeply religious, and while he said he was comfortable recording Lennon's song "God" he "did kind of flinch" when playing "Sympathy for the Devil" when he toured with the Rolling Stones. "I couldn't justify that. I just played along and didn't think about it."
Preston also had string of solo hits in the early 1970s. He won a best instrumental Grammy in 1973 for "Outta Space" (a foreshadow of the synthesizer-heavy pieces that ushered in the disco era) which was featured in the cautionary TV movie "Go Ask Alice" (the song played during the scene in which Alice first uses LSD).
The album the Grammy-winning song was taken from, "I Wrote A Simple Song," was released on Herb Alpert's A&M label and featured George Harrison on lead guitar and arrangements by Quincy Jones.
He also scored chart success with "Will It Go 'Round In Circles," "Nothing From Nothing" and in 1979 "With You I'm Born Again," a duet with Syreeta Wright, Stevie Wonder's-ex, that became wedding ceremony favourite after appearing in the movie "Fast Break."
He also co-wrote with Bill Fisher "You Are So Beautiful," a hit in 1974 for Joe Cocker. The song was originally a Preston B-side.
Preston became part of television history as the musical guest on the first episode of "Saturday Night Live" which aired on October 11, 1975. The show featured George Carlin and Andy Kaufman.
Preston performed "Nothing From Nothing," his 1974 No. 1 hit that became his signature song, and "Fancy Lady." Also on that episode was Janis Ian who sung "At Seventeen" and "In The Winter." It was one of the few times two different musical guests performed two different songs on the same SNL episode.
In the movies, Preston co-scored with Quincy Jones the music for "They Call Me Mister Tibbs!" in 1970, the sequel to "In the Heat of the Night."
He appeared in two less-than-well received films, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in 1978 and "Blues Brothers 2000" and made his last cinematic appearance in "The Derby Stallion" in 2005.
In 1986, Preston became the first African American music director of a late-night TV show, David Brenner's "Nightlife."
The show was short-lived and Preston, who long had drug and alcohol abuse problems, turned to freebasing and crack cocaine. It was to be the beginning of the end.
Preston joined Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band for an album and a tour in 1989, but two years later he was arrested after a 16-year-old boy claimed that Preston had shown him pornography and committed obscene acts with him. He was also accused of assault with a deadly weapon.
Preston served rehab, house arrest and then probation. In 1997 Preston broke parole, testing positive for cocaine and was given a three-year sentence.
While he was in prison, other crimes came to light. With a team including his former manager, he had been staging car crashes, burglaries and fires (once even to his own Los Angeles house) for insurance purposes. He received a further year in jail, pleading guilty in the $1 million scheme and agreeing to testify against the other defendants.
After getting out of jail Preston's career seemed to get back on track but failing health soon became an issue.
In 2002, performing at The Concert For George at the Royal Albert Hall, he was already suffering from hypertension and kidney failure.
In 2004 Preston also performed "Here We Go Again" on Ray Charles' final album, "Genius Loves Company." Also that same year he recorded a tribute album, "Billy Preston's Beatles Salute."
In 2005, in one of his final piblic appearances, he performed at a reunion in Los Angeles for the release of the Bangladesh DVD with Ringo Starr and Harrison's son Dhani on guitar. He also appeared on the 2005 season finale of "American Idol."
Preston left his bed to record a clavinet sequence for a Red Hot Chili Peppers song called "Warlock" which appears on the band's new album, "Stadium Arcadium," which topped the U.S. pop charts in May, 2006.
He played organ on Neil Diamond's most recent album, "12 Songs," and was featured on the Starbucks soul album "Believe to My Soul," featuring Mavis Staples and Ann Peebles. He played his final recording session in October, 2005 for an album by Sam Moore of Sam and Dave.
In 1989, he was twice hospitalised for heart seizures attributable to cocaine use.
Battling chronic kidney failure, Preston had received a kidney transplant in 2002. The kidney failed and he was on dialysis ever since.
He suffered pericarditis which led to respiratory failure. Preston entered a deep coma on November 21st, 2005 and remained at the Shea Scottsdale Hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona until he died.
In 2005 Preston had filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy under U.S. Chapter 11 laws, and a fight over his estate has now broken out between his family and his manager.
That's not the way Billy would have planned it.
Preston regarded his talent as a gift from the Lord, proclaiming, "Music is the voice of God."
Apart from those listed above, Preston worked with (and this is an incomplete list) Merry Clayton, Delaney and Bonnie, Stephen Stills, Martha Reeves, Joe Cocker, Cheech and Chong (contributing some stoned ramblings), Barbra Streisand, Sly and the Family Stone, Luther Vandross, Al Green, Les McCann, Elton John, Johnny Cash, Ricardo Arjona, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Sammy Davis Jr., Stevie Winwood, Yoko Ono, Barbara Streisand, The Monkees, The Jackson Five, Christina Aguilera, Macy Gray, Joni Mitchell, and Michael Jackson.
Billy Preston has a Bacon number of 3.
Other Beatles-related tributes can be found here.