Billy Preston, a musician who did far more musically than I realized, passed away today at age 59.

I grew up with Top 40 radio; that’s a blessing and a curse. Top 40 in my day was wide, but shallow. You heard lots of artists, but never much in-depth about any of them, unless they were perennial chart-toppers. And so it was with Billy. I had heard and liked Nothing From Nothing and Will It Go Round In Circles, and that was the extent of my knowledge.

Then I read the obituary, and good gravy, he’d written for or appeared with everyone from Mahalia Jackson to Ray Charles to Little Richard to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He had movie credits and movie scores. What a legend he was. But I didn’t know all that until today.

So I’ll leave it with a timeless lyric, that always brought a smile to my face from Nothing From Nothing:

Don’t you remember I told ya
I’m a soldier in the war on poverty, yeah

-k-

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