Thursday, March 28, 2024

Billy Preston Got His First of Two No. 1 Singles 47 Years Ago Today [EUR Video Throwback]

On this day 47 years ago, Billy Preston scored the first of his two number one hits on Billboard’s Hot 100.

“Will It Go Round in Circles,” from his second album “Music Is My Life,” released in 1972, was written by Preston and Bruce Fisher. This was also Preston’s first chart topper as a solo artist. As a killer session keyboardist in the 60s, the Los Angeles native has played on No. 1 hits for the likes of  Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Rev. James Cleveland and the Beatles, where he played on “Let it Be” and became the only non-Beatle to ever be credited on a Beatles recording for his contribution to “Get Back,” which reached No. 1 in 1969. Preston was famously referred to as “The Fifth Beatle.”

On January 30, 1969, the Beatles, with keyboardist Preston, surprised a central London office district with an impromptu concert from the roof of Apple headquarters at 3 Savile Row. Listen to his keyboard work below:

Preston was briefly signed to the Fab Four’s Apple Records but didn’t find solo success until he switched to A&M Records. His first album there, “I Wrote A Simple Song,” yielded the Grammy Award-winning instrumental “Outa-Space.”

Preston’s second and final No. 1 single, “Nothing from Nothing,” would come with his third A&M album, “The Kids and Me,” released in 1974.

Preston had suffered kidney disease in his later years and received a kidney transplant in 2002, but his health continued to deteriorate. During a voluntarily stint in a drug rehab clinic in Malibu, he suffered pericarditis, leading to respiratory failure that left him in a coma from November 21, 2005. Preston died on June 6, 2006, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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