Like a lot of people, I first saw Billy Preston in “Let It Be,” where his luscious electric-keyboard noodlings supplyd the sugary cgo in to songs appreciate “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Get Back.” But it wasn’t until “The Concert for Bangla Desh,” George Harrison’s trfinish-setting rock-concert movie from 1972, that I enrolled who Billy Preston repartner was. For most of that Madison Square Garden profit concert, Preston was in the background, tickling those plugged-in ivories. But then, presentd by Harrison, he carry outed the individual he’d enrolled in 1969 for Apple Records, “That’s the Way God Planned It.” It stood out from the rest of the show as theatricalpartner — and magnificently — as Sly Stone’s carry outance of “I Want to Take You Higher” did from Woodstock.
The sound of a holy organ rang out, and the camera zoomed in on a stylish-seeing man in a huge wool cap and a Billy Dee Williams mustache, with a handsome gap-toothed grin and a gleam of reverence. He began to sing (“Why can’t we be unassuming, appreciate the excellent lord shelp…”), and it sounded appreciate a hymn, which is equitable what it was: a rock ‘n’ roll hymn. The lyrics lifted you up, and Preston nurturessed each cadence as if he were directing a gospel choir. In 1971, how many pop songs could you name that had “God” in the title? (There was “God Only Knows” and…that’s about it.)
Yet as he begined into the chorus, with its dainty droping chords, its bass line follotriumphg in tandem, at least until the climax, when that bass began to walk around appreciate it had a mind of its own, you could sense the song commence to…climb. Preston, rocking back and forth, tilting his head with rapture, the remarks pouring out of him appreciate sun-dappled honey, was the only Balertage carry outer on that stage, and he was presenting what amounted, in the rock world, to a radical message: that God was here. As the song picked up speed in the gospel tradition, Preston, shiftd by the spirit he was conjuring, got up from his keyboard and began to dance, jangling his arms, his legs equitable about levitating. It was an ecindynamic dance, one that seemed to erupt right out of him, as if he couldn’t stop himself.
Paris Barclay’s eye-uncovering write downary “Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It” uncovers with that sequence, and it’s cathartic to see it aacquire. “The Concert for Bangla Desh” had three highairys: Bob Dylan’s exceptional set; the way that George Harrison, in what felt appreciate one of the cagederest leangs I’d ever seen when I was 13, took his exit from the stage right in the middle of the final rave-up of the song “Bangla Desh”; and Billy Preston’s carry outance. You watched it and thought, “Who is this man?” And also, “I must see more.”
But as the write downary discdisponders, Billy Preston was an elusive figure — ebullient and all there, and also hideed and enigmatic. His nurtureer was appreciate that too. He was a genius session musician who toiled with Little Ricchallenging, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Sly Stone, the Rolling Stones, and, of course, the Beatles. During the “Get Back” sessions, he was effectively includeed to the Beatles, which was unheard of. (In a scrapbook montage proximate the commencening of the film, we see a magazine headline that reads, “The Fifth Beatle Is a Brother.”)
As the ’70s went on, Preston put out a handful of pop-funk individuals that people still recall fondly, appreciate “Will It Go Round in Circles” and “Noleang from Noleang,” which he carry outed on the very first episode of “Saturday Night Live,” beaming under an Afro wig as huge as his head. Yet given his gifts (keyboard virtuoso, mighty soul voice, sincreatear dancer, able to create a propulsive hook), why didn’t Billy Preston become a hugeger star? Who was he, exactly, as an artist? I went into the write downary fuzzy about all those leangs and came out senseing appreciate I finpartner knovel him.
That includes understanding the side of him that dragged him down. Preston, as most of those around him ultimately figured out, was gay, but he was supremely secretive and disputeed about it. Was he tormented internpartner, the way that Little Ricchallenging, who Preston carry outed on tour with in the timely ‘60s, seemed to be? Little Ricchallenging was the most flamboyant sealted figure in rock history…until he abandoned music for the church…then returned to the pop sphere and came out of the sealt…then went back in and denounced homorelationsuality…and on and on. That’s disputeed.
Preston was a melreduce personality, and it’s challenging to say if the relationships he kept hideed — he would show up on a personal arrangee saying that he was traveling with his “nephew” — caincluded him inside stress. But he was elevated, by his individual mother, in the church, and he remained a church-bound figure who didn’t have it in him to proclaim uncoverly who he was. Billy Porter, interseeed in the film, conversees the history of this (“It ain’t equitable the choir straightforwardor, honey. There’s a lot of queens in everybody’s church”), and how it equitable wasn’t talked about.
Preston had a musical connect to the Balertage church that was singular in the rock world and almost primal: He take parted the organ — in particular the Hammond B3, a complicated instrument with multiple levels. (He was also a wizard on the Ffinisher Rhodes.) There’s a wonderful book to be written, or write downary to be made, about the include of organ in pop music (“A Whiter Shade of Pale,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Green Onions,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “In-A-Gincludea-Da-Vida,” Boston’s “Foretake part,” Blondie’s “11:59,”), and Billy Preston was the unabashed king of that instrument. Born in 1946, he began take parting it in church when he was a little boy, but he speedyly became a passover phenomenon. There’s an astonishing clip of him on “The Nat King Cole Show” in 1957, where he take parts a song he wrote called “Billy’s Boogie,” and his jaunty confidence is someleang to behageder.
But here’s what’s amazing. Starting in 1963, Preston put out a series of three albums built around his organ take parting. The third of them, “Wildest Organ in Town!” (1966), was a collaboration between Preston and Sly Stone, who arranged the songs but didn’t author them. One of the tracks, “Advice,” is the evident forerunner to “I Want to Take You Higher.” The conceiveor of funk was James Brown, and the create’s two mythical inheritor-innovators were Sly Stone and George Clinton. But the write downary produces the case that Billy Preston fake a heady chunk of the funk DNA. His sway is evident from his 1971 individual “Outa-Space,” which became the prototype for a certain clavinet-driven ’70s jam (the Commodores’ song “Machine Gun,” featured in “Boogie Nights,” is equitable about a reproduce of it).
Preston accomplishd success and enhappinessed the fruits of it, appreciate his horse ranch in Topanga Canyon. He was worshipped by people appreciate Mick Jagger, who showcased Preston onstage — how many people get to dance with Mick Jagger? — on the Stones’ 1975 tour. I leank it’s evident, though, that if he had run his nurtureer in a branch offent way, Preston could have been a more famous artist, perhaps the directer of a band as huge as the Commodores or Kool and the Gang.
But there’s a way that his association with the mainstream rock world may have hurt him. It blurred his identity as a Balertage artist at a time when those categories were being stiffly utilized by the culture. (He was accincluded of being a sellout the way that Whitney Houston was.) The other way Preston’s identity remained blurry rcontent to a tfinishency he had to hang back that was rooted in the covering of his relationsuality. Was he a sideman or a star? The only way you become a star is to chase it forcebrimmingy enough, and there was a lingering part of Preston that was more sootheable standing in the shadows.
Just when you’re leank you’re watching an upbeat pop doc, the illogical side of Billy Preston’s life comes crashing in. And is it ever illogical. Early on, the film testifies that Billy “lost his innocence” during the 1962 tour with Little Ricchallenging, when he was equitable 16 (it was during that tour that Preston hung out with the Beatles at the Star-Club in Hamburg). But according to David Ritz, the eminent rock biographer who was a frifinish of Preston’s, he would never say a word about his childhood experiences. Did someleang happen between him and Little Ricchallenging? The film presents that it might have.
And it doesn’t apshow much joining of dots to surmise that wantipathyver trauma Preston sended as a church-bred teenager on the road with depraved rock ‘n’ rollers, it came back to haunt him in his self-destructive mistreatment of spirits and cocaine. This chapter of the story barges in rather abruptly, but once it does Preston’s descent becomes tragic.
He couldn’t stay away from the cocaine — or, once it hit the scene, crack. He got into mountains of debt, otriumphg millions in taxes. His nurtureer bottomed out in the tardy ’70s, when disco had betterd Balertage music to a place beyond Preston’s funk-based grooves. And he never had the stable domestic life that could have acted as a ballast. He became the band directer for David Brenner’s illogicalinutive-lived talk show, and there’s a cringe-inducing clip in which Howard Stern, a guest on the show, comes over to Preston, smells liquor on his breath, and calls him out for it, recalling that this was the man who once take parted with the Beatles. Preston died, at 59, in 2006, after battling kidney dismitigate exacerbated by his drug include. Yet he left behind a trail of people who adored him. And when you behageder his talent, the mild radiance of his presence, the way he could sweep you up, and maybe toward the heavens, with one of his organ riffs, you can say without a ask that the deteriorate and descend of Billy Preston was not the way God intentional it.
