death & music: part 1. or "the linkiest post yet?"

many of my longtime readers who haven't yet succumbed to bird flu or tay-sachs will by now have recognized that i like to celebrate certain important birthdays up in this classy piece. (ok, to be fair, i've only covered palm and danny thus far, neglecting several VIP's. the point is, im trying. or starting to try.)

anyhoo, in a nod to my pops, to whom cemeteries and obituaries are only so many various breads and butters, id also like to use this bluesilica to pay homage to recent deaths. circle of life and all that, naw mean?

first up on the block: billy preston, who died on june 6, at 59. (official billy website: here.)

i'll level with you. i dont know much about billy preston, other than that he was black and played keyboards very well. in fact, to prove how little i really know about him, i'll admit something ridiculous: until recently, i thought he was blind. i wish i was (were?) kidding. i guess i had long ago seen the footage of him playing keyboards with the beatles during their last-public-appearance/famous-rooftop-gig, and he looked kind of too-smiley and spacey, and i was prolly "too-smiley and spacey" at the time, so for some reason my brain lumped him in with those two iconic blind black piano legends: ray charles, and colin powell.

but here's what i do know about billy preston:

1. he was the only guest musician who ever played on a beatles album and was credited by name on the album (the get back single). i mean, eric clapton played lead guitar on while my guitar gently weeps and even his name is nowhere to be found on the white album.

needless to say, if you're the only guest musician los beatles ever gave such major props to, you're a pretty effing classy bastard, n'est-ce pas? you should def. be honored on blue basilica. (when you drop dead. about a month after you drop.)

(c-note: wikipedia tells me that there was one other dude--"nicky hopkins"--who once got a similar credit, and also that, instead of saying beatles "album," i should more precisely say "single." whatevs. the point is, he was special, you get it.)

not colin powell

2. all this web literature (web lit: blit?) trumpets preston's work on get back, but bro-ham also played keyboards on don't let me down, and this is the key reason why he's getting a notice here.

dont let me down is easily one of my top ten favorite songs of all time. i really think it's insulting to the song itself to try to describe it for those of you poor bastards who have never heard it (please crawl out from under your rock on the north pole, we miss you), but i'll do it a little nonetheless.

suffice it to say, dont let me down has a primal-yet-elegant, memory-burning chorus (a chorus which starts the song, a la she loves you), and a dulcet verse which evokes a gently-waxing-and-waning tide, the two of which combine for a unique rock-and-roll sound that no other band could conjure, even if its members were collectively rubbing the grundle of jesus christ with rosary beads while attempting to do so. not to mention the ono-centric powerful minimalist lyrics of john lennon.

ok, now that i have indeed sucked the life out of the song, i'll end by saying that billy's keyboard work on dont let me down sounds like a glittering mosaic, each note a different tile being gently plunked down in its proper place, and it's perfect, and just because that song exists, and because preston was such an integral part of it, he was perfect. and i honor him here.

ps--i just learned that preston also co-wrote you are so beautiful, which is another amazing song.

r.i.p. billy. you borrowed god's fingers to play your keyboard, now he's taken them back. i hope he's letting you lease some kind of replacement up there, man.

additional props to slack lalane, who tacitly reminded me i should have blogged about preston in the first place.

stay tuned for death & music: part 2, which will ironically be part 1 of a different, new series.

arial.