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.
Bill
Dahl
All
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