Billy Preston, 59, Organist Charted Funky Hits
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Billy Preston, who died yesterday at 59,played keyboards for the Beatles and Rolling Stones before scoring a string of infectiously funky pop hits in the 1970s, including “Will It Go Round in Circles” and “Nothing From Nothing.”
Preston maintained a fevered creative pace through the 1980s. Preston started out in the late 1950s as a child prodigy who led a gospel church choir at age 10, backed Mahalia Jackson, and played W.C. Handy in the 1958 biopic “St. Louis Blues.”
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