PHOENIX — Billy Preston, the exuberant keyboardist who landed dream gigs with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and enjoyed his own series of hit singles including "Outta Space" and "Nothing From Nothing," died Tuesday at 59.
Preston's longtime manager, Joyce Moore, said Preston had been in a coma since November in a care facility and was taken to a Scottsdale hospital Saturday after his condition deteriorated.
"He had a very, very beautiful last few hours and a really beautiful passing," Moore said by telephone from Germany.
Preston had battled chronic kidney failure, and received a kidney transplant in 2002. But the kidney failed and he had been on dialysis ever since, Moore said earlier this year.
Known for his big smile and towering Afro, Preston was a teen prodigy on the piano and organ, and he lent his gospel-tinged touch to classics such as the Beatles' "Get Back" and the Stones' "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?"
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He broke out as a solo artist in the 1970s, winning a best-instrumental Grammy in 1973 for "Outta Space" and scoring other hits with "Will It Go 'Round in Circles," "Nothing From Nothing" and "With You I'm Born Again," a duet with Syreeta Wright. He also wrote Joe Cocker's weeper "You Are So Beautiful."
Other career highlights included being a musical guest, in 1975, on the debut of "Saturday Night Live."
His partnership with the Beatles began in early 1969 when friend George Harrison recruited him to play on "Let It Be," a back-to-basics film and record project that nearly broke down because of feuding among band members.
Preston not only inspired the Beatles to get along but contributed a light, bluesy solo to "Get Back," performing the song with the band at its legendary roof top concert, the last time the Beatles played live.
Preston remained close to Harrison and performed at Harrison's all-star charity event the Concert for Bangladesh and at the Concert for George, a tribute to Harrison, who died of cancer in 2001.
Preston also toured and recorded extensively with the Rolling Stones, playing on such classic albums as "Sticky Fingers" and "Exile on Main Street."
His sessions credits included Aretha Franklin's "Young, Gifted and Black," Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" and Sly and the Family Stone's "There's a Riot Goin' On."
A Houston native who soon moved to Los Angeles when his parents split up, Preston was around show business for much of his life. He was taking piano lessons at age 3 and was just 10 when he played keyboards for Mahalia Jackson.
Two years later he portrayed a young W. C. Handy in the 1958 biopic "St. Louis Blues." He toured with Ray Charles and Little Richard in the early 1960s, first encountering the Beatles while on the road in Germany.
