Billy Preston

Born: Sep 9, 1946 in Houston, TX - Died: Jun 6, 20

It's advantageous to get an early start on your chosen career, but Billy Preston took the concept to extremes. By age ten he was playing keyboards with gospel diva Mahalia Jackson, and two years later, in 1958, he was featured in Hollywood's film bio of W.C. Handy, St. Louis Blues, as young Handy himself. Preston was a prodigy on organ and piano, recording during the early '60s for Vee-Jay and touring with Little Richard. He was a loose-limbed regular on the mid-'60s ABC TV series Shindig, proving his talent as both vocalist and pianist, and he built an enviable reputation as a session musician, even backing the Beatles on their Let It Be album. That impressive Beatles connection led to Preston's big break as a solo artist with his own Apple album, but it was his early-'70s soul smashes "Outa-Space" and the high-flying vocal "Will It Go Round in Circles" for A&M that put Preston on the permanent musical map. Sporting a humongous Afro and an omnipresent gap-toothed grin, Preston showed that his enduring gospel roots were never far removed from his joyous approach. He continued to perform and record throughout the '80s, '90s, and 2000s, until he fell into a coma caused by pericarditis late in 2005; sadly, he never regained consciousness and passed away on June 6, 2006.

Discography:

Albums:
1963 Sixteen Year Old Soul
1965 The Most Exciting Organ Ever
1966 The Wildest Organ in Town!
1967 Club Meeting
1969 Billy Preston [1969]
1969 Greazee Soul
1969 That's the Way God Planned It
1970 Encouraging Words
1971 I Wrote a Simple Song
1972 Music Is My Life
1973 Everybody Likes Some Kind of Music
1973 Original Billy Preston: Soul'd Out
1974 Live European Tour
1974 The Kids & Me
1975 Gospel in My Soul
1975 It's My Pleasure
1976 Billy Preston [1976]
1977 Whole New Thing
1979 Late at Night
1981 Billy and Syreeta
1981 The Way I Am
1982 Pressin' On
1984 On the Air Unidisc
1985 Ministry of Music
1995 Minister of Music
1996 Words & Music
1997 Universal Love
2001 Music from My Heart
2005 You & I Nicolosi