[Slowhand] Billy Preston...

[Garret74 at aol.com]

Singer-Songwriter Billy Preston Dies
Tuesday Jun 06, 2006 4:20pm EST
By Stephen M. Silverman  

Billy Preston performing on Soul Train in 1975.  
CREDIT: PHOTOFEST / RETNA  

Keyboardist Billy Preston, whose gigs included those with the  Beatles (on 
"Get Back") and the Rolling Stones ("Can't You Hear Me Knocking?"),  died 
Tuesday after a long illness. He was 59. 

Preston's longtime  manager, Joyce Moore, told the Associated Press that the 
musician had been in a  coma since November in a care facility and was taken 
to a hospital in  Scottsdale, Ariz., Saturday after his condition deteriorated. 
"He had a very,  very beautiful last few hours and a really beautiful 
passing," she said. "He  went home good." 

Preston had battled chronic kidney failure, and he  received a kidney 
transplant in 2002. But the kidney failed and he has been on  dialysis ever since, 
Moore said earlier this year. 

Known for his big  smile, the Houston-born Preston was a teen prodigy on the 
piano and organ. After  lending his gospel-tinged touch to the music of the 
Beatles and the Stones,  Preston broke out as a solo artist in the '70s, winning 
a best instrumental  Grammy in 1973 for "Outta Space," and scoring other hits 
with "Will It Go 'Round  In Circles," "Nothing From Nothing" and "With You 
I'm Born Again," a duet with  Syreeta Wright. 

He also penned the Joe Cocker standard "You Are So  Beautiful," and co-wrote 
with Quincy Jones the score for 1970 movie They  Call Me Mr. Tibbs. He was the 
first musical guest on the 1975 debut of  Saturday Night Live, and appeared 
in the films Blues Brothers  2000 and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Other  collaborators over the decades include the Jackson 5, Aretha Franklin, 
Sam Cooke  and the Red Hot Chili Peppers
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