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The first time I heard Billy Preston, I must have been about 5 years old—a couch spud, not yet even a potato. Somehow my parents had procured a Betamax copy of the execrable 1978 movie "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," a musical featuring the songs of the Beatles, though not sung by the Beatles. Come to think of it, the film, which has become an ironically beloved Generation-X kitsch icon, was a direct antecedent of the unfortunate Broadway trend to build musicals around the songs of a given artist's catalog ("Mamma Mia," "Movin' Out," "Jersey Boys" and so on).
Watching this movie, over and over (and over) again, was a pivotal irony-free experience in my young life. Mostly it was life-changing because—and I am only a little embarrassed to admit this publicly—it was also the first time I had ever heard the music of the Beatles ... performed, albeit, by the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton (whose character's name is Billy Shears. I wish I were joking). The film's plot, if you can call it that, is a moot MacGuffin—a lame device on which to hang 30-odd Beatles covers, performed by the leads and scads of cameos. Aerosmith does an evil "Come Together," Earth, Wind and Fire a rousing "Got to Get You Into My Life" and George Burns a cuddly "Fixing a Hole." I loved all the music in this movie, completely unaware that every song was written by four lads from Liverpool. Give me some credit, I was under 10. At least I recognized great music when I heard it, even if it was performed in one scene by Alice Cooper (and in others by Frampton).
And then there was Billy Preston, one of several "fifth" Beatles (Pete Best and Stu Sutcliffe have been getting short shrift this week). Preston's jubilant rendition of "Get Back," which comes at the dramatic climax of the flick, is for me a high point in music-movie history. It's tied, easily, with the dueling-banjo sequence in "Deliverance" as the best all-time musical moment in a film. It's that good. Preston arrives as a heavenly emissary (a ridiculous non sequitur, a literal deus ex machina ), just as everything appears doomed for Frampton and the Bee Gees. He pauses time, resurrects the dead and makes everything right in the world. And how does he do it? With the funk.
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It's Beatles funk, but it's funk nonetheless. Preston's interpretation of the song is pure joy, all slap-poppy bass and glimmering keys. As anyone who's read the obituaries knows by now Preston, a piano prodigy who played for Mahalia Jackson when he was 10, actually played the keyboards on the original studio recording of "Get Back." His off-screen persona was apparently as infectious as his performance in the movie: George Harrison would later say that Preston's presence during the tense "Let It Be" sessions was the sole font of positive energy. In fact, he was the only artist to share credit with the Beatles on a single ("Get Back" was credited to the "Beatles with Billy Preston"). His work can also be heard on "Hey Jude," and he backed the band at their famous 1969 concert atop Apple studios in London.
Preston's career as a session musician started long before, and continued long after, the Beatles split. He played with John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr as they all launched solo careers. He played with Bob Dylan, Sly and the Family Stone, Ray Charles, Little Richard and Aretha Franklin. He played for those anti-Beatles, the Rolling Stones. Preston was also a songwriter who wrote a little ditty for Joe Cocker called "You Are So Beautiful." You can find a few incredible clips of him in action—in the studio with the Beatles, jamming with George Harrison at the "Concert for Bangladesh," and dancing with Mick Jagger in a video for "Hey Negrita"—by surfing around YouTube.
But he was more than a brilliant session musician. It's in his solo stuff that you'll find the real magic. I challenge anyone to listen to his 1973 instrumental jam "Outa-Space" and not shake or wiggle at least one wigglable body part. It's the apotheosis of funk. The Recording Academy thought so, too, and gave him a Grammy. He also scored hits with the gospel-fueled hair-raiser "Will It Go Round In Circles" and the jaunty "Nothing from Nothing" (listen carefully and you'll hear a banjo burbling under that horn section). To be honest, I don't even own that large a chunk of his catalog, which is perhaps why I was surprised to find myself feeling so sad when I heard he had died. His is the sort of music that requires you to close your eyes and listen with your entire body. With a little effort, you might be able to keep yourself from dancing, but who could keep from smiling?
Of course all the joyful trappings of his public persona—the exuberant songs, the gap-toothed grin, the thunderous Afro—hid the man's darker demons. The kidney failure that ultimately took his life stemmed from extensive drug use. In the 1990s he was forced into court-ordered rehabilitation and was arrested on various offenses, including a 1998 insurance-fraud case. But his talent and charisma kept him constantly busy. Last year he went back into the studio, this time with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The resulting collaboration can be heard on the song "Warlock" off their latest album, "Stadium Arcadium," which reached the No. 1 slot on the charts last month. He also played on Neil Diamond's recent Rick Rubin-produced album "12 Songs." One can only wish that it did "go round in circles," because at 59, Preston took his leave far too early.
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