RIP Billy Preston

Singer-songwriter Billy Preston dead at 59

PHOENIX - Billy Preston, the exuberant keyboardist who landed dream gigs with
the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and enjoyed his own series of hit singles,
including "Outta Space" and "Nothing From Nothing," died Tuesday at 59.

Preston's longtime manager, Joyce Moore, said Preston had been in a coma
since November in a care facility and was taken to a hospital in Scottsdale
Saturday after his condition deteriorated.

"He had a very, very beautiful
last few hours and a really beautiful passing," Moore said by telephone from
Germany. "He went home good."

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

Known for his big smile and towering afro, Preston was a teen
prodigy on the piano and organ, and lent his gospel-tinged touch to classics
such as the Beatles' "Get Back" and the Stones' "Can't You Hear Me
Knocking?"

He broke out as a solo artist in the 1970s, 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

Billy with George Harrison and President Ford, 1974