Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
He toured with Little Richard, was enamored of Ray Charles, and made several instrumental albums.
(Thankfully, he had by then ditched his own version of a moptop.)
Keyboardist Billy Preston is the focus of a new documentary, ‘That’s the Way God Planned It,’ which probes the artist’s troubled life.Joe Bangay/HultonArchive/Getty
He would steal the record without you even knowing, he says.
All throughout that period, Preston himself was publicly never less than upbeat.
But the more we learn about him, the more he seemed to be wearing a particularly well-crafted mask.
The damage started in his youth.
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
But given his public persona, Prestons decline was, and remains, shocking.
In life and his own documentary, Preston remains a beaming mystery.
