Billy Preston

Billy Preston (born September 2, 1946, Houston, Texas, U.S.—died June 6, 2006, Scottsdale, Arizona) was an American musician who was the consummate sideman as a keyboard player, recording and touring with a Who’s Who of popular music. He was also a star in his own right as well as an accomplished songwriter.

Preston was raised in Los Angeles and began playing piano at age three. By age 10 he had accompanied gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, and he played the young W.C. Handy in the film St. Louis Blues (1958). He traveled in 1962 with Little Richard’s band to Europe, where he met the then unknown Beatles in Hamburg. The young Preston released his first solo albums, including 16 Year Old Soul (1963) and The Most Exciting Organ Ever (1965).

After playing in the house band on television’s Shindig and in Ray Charles’s backing band, Preston recorded several albums for the Beatles’ Apple Records. Arguably the musician with the strongest claim as the “Fifth Beatle,” he added a driving organ to “Get Back,” which was credited to “the Beatles with Billy Preston.” Besides contributing to Abbey Road (1969), and Let It Be (1970), he was part of the rooftop performance at the center of the band’s film Let It Be (1970). Over the years Preston also performed on solo projects by the individual former Beatles.

Preston toured often with the Rolling Stones and played on landmark albums such as Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main Street (1972), as well as on Sly and the Family Stone’s There’s a Riot Going On (1971). Seemingly everywhere in the early 1970s, Preston charted as a solo artist with the Grammy Award-winning instrumental “Outa-Space” (1972) and reached number one with “Will It Go Round in Circles” (1973) and “Nothing from Nothing” (1974). He also co-wrote “You Are So Beautiful,” a gigantic hit for Joe Cocker.

Although Preston’s career peaked in the 1970s, he continued to record and tour with such artists as Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr. He appeared in the film Blues Brothers 2000 (1998) and was a guest performer on Johnny Cash’s 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around, on Ray Charles’s Genius Loves Company (2004), and on the Red Hot Chili Peppers album Stadium Arcadium (2006). Preston was announced as the winner of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Musical Excellence Award in 2021.