Billy Preston

An influential session musician and a key figure in popularising funk, keyboard maestro Billy Preston is probably best remembered for his close musical partnership with late-period Beatles. A Texan by birth but mostly raised in Los Angeles, Preston started playing piano at the age of three and was regarded as a child prodigy, performing with great gospel artists like Mahalia Jackson and Andrae Crouch before he was in his teens. In 1958 he starred as blues legend W.C.Handy in the movie St Louis Blues and played keyboards with Little Richard, Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, making his first solo album The Most Exciting Organ Ever in 1965. It was whilst on tour with Little Richard that Preston first met The Beatles, with whom he worked closely on several sessions (their Get Back single was officially credited as "featuring Billy Preston"). Signed to The Beatles' Apple label, he then had his own pop hit in 1969 with That's The Way God Planned It and, after The Beatles split, continued to work closely with George Harrison. Preston then pioneered the development of funk and had big hits with Will It Go Round In Circles, Nothing From Nothing and Space Race, which all sold over a million. In 1980 he had another hit collaborating with Syreeta Wright on With You I'm Born Again (from the movie Fast Break) but his career hit the skids due to alcohol and drug addiction. He recovered to tour with Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr and even played a clavinet on a Red Hot Chili Peppers album, but died in 2006 after a longstanding battle with kidney disease.

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