"That's the Way God Planned It" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFWU_475o0c
I thought he was a different guy.
What do I know about Billy Preston? He showed up in the studio and played with the Beatles and he had a few hits in the early seventies sporting a giant afro. He was always smiling, I thought he was a happy-go-lucky guy.
Turns out that was not the case.
Obviously I know a bit more, but that was my impression, of someone lighthearted, not tortured. But that's what Billy was.
A theme explored throughout the film is Billy's sexuality. Bottom line...he was gay. Oh, there are theories that when Kathy Silva left him for Sly Stone it turned him off women. But this film says that was not a romantic relationship.
And this film alludes to abuse early in Billy's life, but I had to go to Wikipedia for the details. Which says Preston was abused by the pianist of a touring company of "Amos 'n' Andy" and subsequently was abused by a pastor too.
Not that Billy ever talked about it. Other than to his last manager, Joyce Moore, who revealed these details.
Yes, you can watch this entire film and still not know who Billy Preston was...because he was internalized, didn't reveal his feelings seemingly to anyone. No one in this film can testify as to his inner monologue, his thoughts, and there are a lot of people talking.
That's what makes this documentary different from most. It wasn't done on the cheap. Today anybody can make a film, and oftentimes they do. Which ends up being opinion and whatever footage they can scrap together, because back in the sixties and seventies there were no home video cameras and film was expensive...
But there is a good amount of film of Billy. He was a prodigy. I don't remember "Rolling Stone" or the other rags saying this, then again did Billy get short shrift because he was Black? Although the white rockers were inspired by the Black delta bluesmen...it was a white business, very much so, Jimi Hendrix was an anomaly.
But there's footage here of Billy playing in church, on TV with Nat King Cole... This is not the traditional avenue of a white rocker, that's for sure. The white rockers were off the radar screen before they broke through, but Billy's talent was recognized right away, and he was exposed, he even made records, but they didn't penetrate the white market.
And Billy played in church. The conundrum here is Billy got his inspiration and community from the church which preached against homosexuality, and this film says many men in the choir were gay and...for all the progress we've made, the pendulum is swinging back, did you see they removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall Monument? They don't like people who don't look like them and act like them...ironically, it is the outsiders, those who are different, who provide so much of the entertainment for close-minded people.
Anyway, Billy goes on the road to England with Little Richard and he's just a teenager, fifteen or sixteen, I heard both in the movie. This is an age when kids are still in high school. And what you see on the road...
And the Beatles met Billy when they all played in Hamburg. Which is set up well in this flick, such that when he shows up in the studio it truly is just a friend dropping by, whereas previously it appeared Billy was an opportunist.
But the thing with Billy was... He could pick up a song on the fly, add a solo the first time through. The footage with the Beatles will jet you right back to the era, when everybody was still young, you're stunned they could come up with this stuff.
And Billy makes music for Apple and then George gets him a release and he signs with A&M and...
There's "Outa-Space," I loved that song. But there's also "Will It Go Round in Circles," which bugged me on the radio in my '63 Chevy all through the summer of '73, the convertible only having an AM radio. I just didn't like it, seemed a trifle, too simple.
Which is actually what Billy and his co-writer thought it was. But it became a hit.
Of course Billy wrote "You Are So Beautiful"...which became Dennis Wilson's signature song, when he sang it in concert there was a pathos, with his ultimately gruff voice, absent from the rest of the show.
And, of course, Joe Cocker had a hit with the number. And one of the absolute highlights of the film is when Joe and Patti Labelle perform "You Are So Beautiful" at the 50th anniversary concert at the Apollo. Your jaw will drop, it's akin to Aretha giving that tour-de-force performance at the Kennedy Center Honors. I had to do research... This concert was broadcast, but I never saw it. It's a time capsule...you'll be stunned that people so talented were walking the earth and performing.
And Billy's playing in the background...
Now Billy was tight with George Harrison, and that led him to Eric Claptoin, who put Billy in his band and then realized it was Billy's show...not because he hogged the spotlight, but because he was so damn good.
And you see that over and over and over again, you see what the Beatles saw. This guy would just sit down at the keys and what came out was exactly right, you couldn't have predicted it, but there it was.
And then Billy's peak is over.
We get great stories before that, from the studio engineer and his co-writer and his bass player...we normally don't get this peek into the lives of Black people, too many believe they're cartoons...but these guys are talking and they're just like you and me. (Oh, give me sh*t, you're better than me, you don't have a racist bone in your body, you don't see color...but it don't really happen that way at all, as Pete Townshend wrote.)
And Billy's got this best friend who gives the most insight.
And Billy steals the show at the Concert for George, but...
It eventually all runs out. That's what always happens, time passes you by.
Now unlike Nicky Hopkins, Billy had hits on his own, so he had money. But what are you going to do when you're famous but no longer hot?
Drugs. And alcohol.
Billy fell down the rabbit hole. Lost everything.
Now those of us who remember Billy, those of us who lived through his arc, forget these days when Billy was still on the planet, struggling.
He was the bandleader for David Brenner's ultimately failed TV show, but...
This is what we never see. Yes, "Behind the Music" revealed the downward spiral, and Billy ultimately went down too, but before that...you're famous but you will never reach the heights, get that level of adulation again. Where do you go from here? How do you make sense of life?
It's well-documented that Billy ultimately went to jail, but this film is just not a recitation of facts. It tries to get to the heart of the real Billy. And it goes further than any previous exploration, but to a degree Billy remains an enigma.
But it was a different time. We didn't know every move of everybody's life.
But like I said, this film illustrates how Billy was a prodigy, and acknowledged even by his hero, Ray Charles.
It's all here, the arc of Billy's life. And it's well done.
But exactly who Billy is...
He was a church boy who ultimately got into drugs? Was he just in that much pain? Could he not cope with falling from the mountaintop career-wise?
The gap-toothed smiling guy was just not the right person at the right time. He was so good he was undeniable, people wanted to work with him, he seemingly could do no wrong.
But the smile was oftentimes a cover.
This film isn't perfect, because I'm still not sure exactly who Billy Preston was. However...
This is a guy who deserves recognition, the accolades. This is a guy who was a household name whose name seems to have been forgotten. This film puts Billy Preston back in the firmament, claims his talent and achievements. And it's peopled with those who were there then, who knew the guy.
But did anybody really know Billy Preston?
Watch the movie and tell me what you think.
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