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Billy Preston

 


Keyboardist, singer and song writer William Everett Preston was born in Houston, Texas on September 2, 1946. Billy Preston was a child prodigy, playing organ in public as young as age 10, even playing for Mahalia Jackson. By 1962 he was playing in Little Richard’s backing group. In 1965 he recorded an album, The Most Exciting Organ Ever, from which this single was taken. To this day it remains a fantastic instrumental. He recorded several times with The Beatles and for their Apple record company, with which he had a number of successful recordings.

Preston had a complex personality, had suffered sexual abuse as a child, and had personal difficulties with addictions and his homosexuality; in 1991 he was sentenced to nine months detention in a rehabilitation clinic followed by three months of house arrest for a sexual offence with a minor. There were subsequently other offences of different natures.

Billy Preston died of kidney disease in Scottsdale, Arizona on June 6, 2006, aged 59.

Image: The Band

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