MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's 1969. The Beatles are trying to record what would become their final albums, and they're at each other's throats. Nothing is working. Then a visitor enters the studio, the keyboard player Billy Preston. On a whim, he sits down to join them for a song, and the mood totally changes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T LET ME DOWN")
THE BEATLES: (Singing) Don't let me down.
MARTIN: A film crew was there to capture that moment.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BILLY PRESTON: THAT'S THE WAY GOD PLANNED IT")
THE BEATLES: (Singing) Don't let me down. Don't let me down.
JOHN LENNON: You're in the group.
(LAUGHTER)
LENNON: You've given us a lift, Bill. We've been doing this for days.
MARTIN: Did you catch what they said? You're in the group. You've given us a lift. We've been doing this for days. Preston saved those sessions, which is just one reason John Lennon called him the fifth Beatle. But Preston died in 2006. Younger generations barely know who he is. There's a new documentary that hopes to change that. It's called "Billy Preston: That's The Way God Planned It." I spoke with director Paris Barclay.
PARIS BARCLAY: I didn't know about his relationship to Beatles. I didn't know that he played with the Rolling Stones constantly. And as I started to do a little research, I discovered that not only was he a transcendent performer musically, but that his story, including even the tragic things that happened, can be sort of a cautionary tale for how we deal with genius and especially how the Black church deals with people who are different.
MARTIN: Billy Preston's talent as a musician was obvious at a very young age. He was just a teenager when he went on tour with Little Richard, that the tour took him through Germany. And then he met the Beatles.
BARCLAY: Yeah. They were just a small band in Hamburg that was opening for Little Richard. Billy Preston used to get them food and drinks for free because he was a headliner and he could do that. And then a few years later, Billy just strolls into Abbey Road. And suddenly, he sits down at the keyboard and becomes an essential part of the band.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GET BACK")
THE BEATLES: (Singing) Get back, Jo.
MARTIN: He was an accomplished sideman - you've just described that - very in demand. But he also had a solo career. Could you talk a little bit about that?
BARCLAY: Yeah, well, because of his relationship with the Beatles, George Harrison signed him to Apple Records. And then he left to go to A&M. Once he's at A&M, suddenly, everything started flowing. That's when we got "Nothing From Nothing."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOTHING FROM NOTHING")
BILLY PRESTON: (Singing) Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. You got to have something if you want to be with me.
BARCLAY: And that's when we got "It Go Round In Circles." And those hits became ubiquitous. I mean, I don't know if you remember. But I remember, when I was a kid, those were 45s that spun with great regularity.
MARTIN: Are you kidding me?
BARCLAY: (Laughter).
MARTIN: Like, I - through, like, middle school and high school, I was in these little dance groups. And I'm telling you, I cannot remember a recital for years that did not have a Billy Preston song set to some kind of dance. But then at weddings, "You Are So Beautiful."
BARCLAY: Yeah.
MARTIN: Which often people remember the Joe Cocker version. He wrote it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL")
PRESTON: (Singing) You are so beautiful to me.
MARTIN: But I mentioned to a number of people that I was doing this interview. They didn't know who he was. Can you explain that?
BARCLAY: That's one of the reasons why the movie is so urgent. He's gotten lost in the shuffle, even though he's in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And he's still not known, and his contributions are often eclipsed. And part of it is because he's such a great, essential collaborator. He's like a Zelig and he kind of disappears into the sauce. And unless you're a musician, sometimes you don't really know what he's adding to it. And so part of the fun of the documentary is we kind of get under the hood there. And you really get to understand, oh, this was Billy Preston in that song.
MARTIN: It's part of the story, though, that his, I don't know, maybe we'll call it the ladder third of his life became very sad. You know, drug addiction, sexual assault, insurance fraud, you know, prison. I don't know, do you want to call it demons? That's kind of a cliche. But, like, he was struggling with demons. How do you want to describe what was happening with him?
BARCLAY: I think the expression, you're only as sick as your secrets, is a good way to think of Billy Preston. He had a lot of secrets. He had a lot of untoward sexual experiences as a young man that have shaped him. And he had a lot of losses. The death of his brother, and later in life, losing John Lennon, who he was very close to, losing Ray Charles, who had developed him, losing his mother that he was extremely attached to.
MARTIN: Also, a number of people in the documentary talk about his struggle with his sexuality. It's interesting because many of the people that you interview in the film say, so what?
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BILLY PRESTON: THAT'S THE WAY GOD PLANNED IT")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Billy always seemed to have some nice guy with him. It was like, oh, this is my cousin, so and so, or this is my nephew or someone. But everyone sort of knew these were not Billy's cousins or not his nephews.
MARTIN: They didn't care. Why do you think this was so hard for him, such a struggle?
BARCLAY: This goes back, I think, to the church. The Church of God in Christ was not exactly the most accepting place for a homosexual boy.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BILLY PRESTON: THAT'S THE WAY GOD PLANNED IT")
UNIDENTIFIED PASTOR: Sex between a man and a man is unnatural.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Even though you have this genius musical culture that to a large degree is gay in the Black church, the preacher will be preaching against homosexuality, while the somewhat gay choir will be accompanying him. And so that is confusing if you're in the choir and you're feeling great about the songs that you sing.
BARCLAY: And so he has always, I believe, internalized what he was hearing from the pulpit as a kind of self-hatred. And in the time that he's coming up, he doesn't have a therapist around the corner, so it's festering. And it becomes something that he seems to only be able to medicate with some Courvoisier and some coke. And that medication then just makes it worse. That's why I always say if Billy had been born 10 years later, he probably would still be with us and still be making music because the times had changed and people would've known better how to help him.
MARTIN: Paris Barclay is the director of the documentary "Billy Preston: That's The Way God Planned It." Paris Barclay, thanks so much for talking with us.
BARCLAY: Thank you so much, Michel. Great questions. And thank you for your thoughtful interview.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THAT'S THE WAY GOD PLANNED IT")
PRESTON: (Singing) I hope you get this message. Where you won't, others will. You don't understand me, but I love you still. That's the way God planned it. That's the way God wants it to be. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
