Billy Preston

He faced a lot of hardships in his personal life including enduring sexual abuse as a child; coping up with his own sexual orientation; unsuccessful relationship with actress-model Kathy Silva; cocaine addiction; visiting drug rehab; and getting arrested several times with charges like drug abuse, insurance fraud and sexual assault.

He suffered from hypertension and kidney disease in his later years and underwent kidney transplant in 2002.

His drug addiction led him to a rehab in Malibu, California and after suffering from pericarditis and subsequent respiratory failure, he went into coma on November 21, 2005.

He was born William Everett Preston on September 2, 1946 in Houston, Texas. When he was just one when his parents divorced following which the family relocated with his mother Robbie to south central Los Angeles where she started working as a funeral home secretary.

His mother used to play organ at ‘Victory Baptist Church’ in Los Angeles and little Billy began playing the family piano sitting on his mother’s lap at the gage of three. Considered a child prodigy Preston used to easily pick up the back tunes he heard. He was a self-learner and never took any music training.

When choir director of the church saw the seven year old wonder kid imitating his conducting motions, he placed Preston in front of the group. Eventually it became a regular practice for the church’s Sunday choir that witnessed a 150-voice choir of adults being directed by little Preston.

By ten he started performing onstage playing piano for many gospel vocalists like Andraé Crouch, James Cleveland and Mahalia Jackson.

When he was 11 he sang American pianist-singer-songwriter Fats Domino’s hit song ‘Blueberry Hill’ along with American singer- jazz pianist Nat King Cole at the latter’s TV show. He also played as young W.C. Handy in Handy’s biographical film ‘St. Louis Blues’ (1958).

He was inducted in the band of Ray Charles in 1967 and gradually started getting proposals from musicians to play for their sessions.

He first met ‘Beatles’ while performing for Little Richard’s touring band in Hamburg in 1962 and later hooked up with the band in 1969 at the verge of their break-up.

He was invited by Harrison to participate in the last nine days of sessions of their album ‘Let It Be’, which was initially conceived as ‘Get Back’.

He performed at the Beatles' rooftop concert, the band’s impromptu concert on January 30, 1969, held at the roof of ‘Apple’ headquarters in central London, marking the final public performance of the band.

The song ‘Get Back’ that was released by the ‘Beatles’ initially as a single on April 11, 1969, was credited to ‘The Beatles with Billy Preston’, thus making Preston the sole musician to receive official acknowledgment on a ‘Beatles’ release. The song was later included as the closing track of the album ‘Let It Be’. Preston was often referred as the ‘Fifth Beatle’ during the recording of ‘Get Back’.

His instrumental track ‘Outa-Space’ reached the number two spot on the US ‘Billboard Hot 100’ list and topped the ‘R&B’ chart of ‘Billboard’ magazine and fetched him the ‘Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance’ in 1972. Again in June that year the ‘RIAA’ awarded it a gold disc. It not only won awards but also proved to be a commercial success with sale of over a million copies in America.