A fallible prodigal genius | Arts & Entertainment

If you were to play a rock ’n’ roll version of the game of “Jeopardy” and the following questions were put on the board, you would advance to Final Jeopardy with one name. 

What organ player had three No. 1 songs, nine Grammy nominations and two Grammy wins? Who was the only person not named John, Paul, George or Ringo credited for writing a Beatles song? Who was the only person to play live and record with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones? Who performed with artists like Ray Charles and Little Richard, Sly Stone, Barbra Streisand, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and more? Who was the musical guest on the first episode of Saturday Night Live? 

The answer to each question would be Billy Preston.

Preston is heralded as one of the greatest Hammond B3 organ players to ever tickle the keys. It is that distinctive sound that brings the songs “Don’t Let Me Down,” and “Get Back” to life on the Beatles’ “Let it Be” (“Get Back” is the song for which he received a co-writing credit). Preston is perhaps best known as “the fifth Beatle.”

Preston is the subject of a new documentary called “Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It” that plays Thursday at The Arts Campus at Willits at 7 p.m.

After the screening, Woody Creek resident Daniel Shaw, an executive producer on the project, will discuss the film, followed by a Q&A. 

Shaw is a journalist, musician and conservationist who lives in Woody Creek with his artist and writer wife, Isa Catto. Over a 40-year career, Shaw has written mostly about music for publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Daily Variety.

It was Shaw who originated the idea for what became the film. The concept started out as a book on Preston. 

“I was such a fan of Billy Preston growing up,” Shaw said in an interview with the Aspen Daily News. “I remember loving his songs ‘Will it Go Round in Circles’ and ‘Nothing for Nothing.’ When he died, I kept waiting for something to come out on him. And nothing happened. No book, no nothing. So I figured I’d look into writing a book about him.”

Shaw reached out to Joyce Moore, Preston’s last manager, and the two agreed to co-write a book. Shaw wrote a 130 page treatment of the book, they lined up a publishing deal with Little Brown and Co. and just before inking it the publishing company got sold and the deal fell apart.

The project morphed into a film (a first for Shaw) and he and Gilly partnered up with Whitehorse Pictures, which brought in Emmy Award-winning director Paris Barclay to direct. Production began in 2020 and wrapped up in 2023.

Brilliant in music, fallible in life 

Preston died in 2006 at the age of 59 due to organ failure brought on by years of drug and alcohol abuse. While “The Way God Planned It” hits the highlights of Preston’s illustrious career and features plenty of great rock ’n’ roll moments, including never-before-seen Beatles footage shot during the making of “Let it Be,” the emotional center of the film lies in the exploration of the issues that most likely drove Preston to become an addict.

Shaw said that Preston’s story would not have been worth telling without confronting the most painful parts of it, particularly Preston being gay and the torment of hiding that fact his entire life.

Preston came out of the Black church, a place where gay men often filled the choirs while preachers condemned homosexuality from the pulpit.

“You cannot separate Billy’s music from that part of his life in the sense that music was an outlet for him to be able to perform and to step outside of his own torment,” Shaw said.

“That’s the Way God Planned It” reveals that Preston was also sexually abused as a child, which he also hid from the world. All of these repressed emotions eventually led Preston into a downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse and the destructive behaviors that followed as a result are confronted directly in the film. 

“Billy was a tortured, complicated soul who eventually developed a drug and alcohol habit thing that ended up killing him and you can lay it right at the feet of his repressed sexuality,” Shaw said.

The film addresses the allegations that marked Preston’s later years, including sexual assault convictions involving an adult male. 

“It was by far the hardest thing to grapple with in this film,” Shaw said. “Paris could have glossed over it but bravely chose to address the troubling parts of Billy’s life head-on.”

In one scene, the judge who ultimately sent Preston to jail for over a year said that it was clear to him that Preston likely would not have committed those acts had he not been a full-blown addict.

Preston, suffering through an addiction that would ultimately prove to be fatal hit home for Shaw in the most tragic and unimaginable way when his 18-year-old daughter Bailey died of an accidental overdose one week after graduating from high school in 2024. 

“Here was a kid, our kid, who was the most brilliant and talented person with so much potential and suddenly she was gone,” Shaw said. “And to experience that kind of loss in the midst of making this film about someone whose addictions took over their life was a profound experience and made it even more important to tell Billy’s story.”

As incredibly talented as Preston was, it was his imperfections and fallibilities that revealed his humanity, according to Shaw. 

“Billy was a prodigal genius,” Shaw said. “He was a confused and tortured soul who was regretful in many ways. But he was keenly aware of the joy that he could bring to other people and he tried to live a life where he was able to do that to the greatest extent possible. I hope people walk away from the film with a greater sense of humanity. And a greater understanding of our humanness. Talent is to be treasured for sure, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all. How we all relate to each other, and how we contribute to bettering humanity is what matters in the end.” 

For more information, visit tacaw.org.