‘Fifth Beatle’ Billy Preston dies at 59

Friends remember Preston
A Houston native who soon moved to Los Angeles when his parents split up, Preston was in and around show business for much of his life. He was taking piano lessons at age 3 and was just 10 when he played keyboards for gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

Two years later he portrayed a young W.C. Handy — played as an adult by Nat “King” Cole — in the 1958 biopic “St. Louis Blues.” He toured with mentors and fellow piano greats Ray Charles and Little Richard in the early 1960s, first encountering the Beatles while on the road in Germany.

Cole’s daughter, singer Natalie Cole, said she appreciated Preston “and his musical genius over the two decades we crossed personal and professional paths,” adding: “He is my favorite keyboardist of all times.”

Gospel musician Andrae Crouch, whose friendship and musical collaboration with Preston spanned four decades, said he had a knack for knowing how to play a song.

“If I played a new idea, he would know where to put it and in what category,” said Crouch, who has performed with Quincy Jones and Elton John. “He was the best keyboard player in the world ... It was like having a harmonica in his mouth. He had that much control over it.”

Exposed to drugs and alcohol early on, Preston had numerous personal troubles in recent years. In 1992, he was given a suspended jail sentence, but ordered incarcerated for nine months at a drug rehabilitation center for his no-contest pleas to cocaine and assault charges. Five years later, he was sentenced to three years in prison for violating probation. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and agreed to testify against other defendants in an alleged scam that netted about $1 million.

“[Jail] was a great lesson, an awakening. I needed to reflect, to get rid of some of the dead weight around me,” he later said. “You take the bitter with the sweet and I have to say it was my faith that kept me going. I had nothing else to fall back on.”

Preston is survived by two sisters.

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