I was curious about the circumstances of Billy Preston's departure from the band after the El Mocambo shows. Keith said at the time something to the effect that Preston had become too dominant in the group and he (Keith) put his foot down. However, Preston's Wikipedia page mentions a money dispute (boy, THAT would be a surprise!) between him and the Stones. Can anyone here shed any light on the details?

Interesting,

would like to see an answer on this post!

<<Preston's Wikipedia page mentions a money dispute (boy, THAT would be a surprise!) between him and the Stones>>

Something about Preston waiting signing a tour contract until after it finished,
which eventually gave him enough bargain power to get a percentage of Love You Live
Mac tells this story in All The Rage

Keith got jealous of all that intimate dancing with Mick out on stage front and had him fired.



Photo by Silver Dagger - Earl's Court May 76



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-11-29 00:58 by Silver Dagger.

<< Keith got jealous of all that intimate dancing with Mick out on stage front and had him fired. <<

I actually think that's at least part of the story. I don't think Keith likes to be upstaged by a non-member.

Well - there was a run-in with Elton wasn't there, on the 75 tour when he jammed Elton overstayed his welcome on stage, eventually getting booted off, resulting in a lasting feud between the two of them.

<< Well - there was a run-in with Elton wasn't there, on the 75 tour when he jammed Elton overstayed his welcome on stage, eventually getting booted off, resulting in a lasting feud between the two of them. >>

I remember that being covered in Rolling Stone at the time. Mick said to Elton "Just the one number, then" (HTW), but Elton didn't want to leave after. That was at one of the LA Forum shows. I went a different night, which was my first Stones gig.

Are you sure about that? I wonder why they let him onstage at Ft Collins July 19th(after the LA shows) then? I could be wrong though.

Perhaps he only appeared at Ft. Collins abd the incident was there...anyone know if Elton played more than one gig on TOTA?

Billy Preston played on Mick's solo record Wandering
Spirit in 1993:

Billy Preston – piano, organ, and clavinet

[en.wikipedia.org])

The Elton thing was definately Colorado during a daytime show in front of about 75 000 people. I'm sure Rockman would have the pics. Elton stayed on for eight songs I think and that pissed Keith off. Elton I'm sure overstayed his welcome but Keith seems to get pissed at alot of people for small things.

As for Billy, well I dunno. It still amazes me that he was given two songs during the Stones set. I know both tracks were US #1 hits but he shoulda just done a support act thing and left it at that. He really was too much in the limelight for a non member. Could anyone imagine the maulling Chuck would cop if he were to do that today?

Wasn't there also some songwriting issue? He didn't properly receive credit for "Melody" (which Wyman pointedly introduces as a song written by Preston when the RKs play it), and I read something about him wanting credit for "Miss You", which he & Jagger cooked up at the El Mocambo warm-ups. No source for the latter that I can cite, just something I've read somewhere along the line.

Billy was leading the band into too much funky music
and there was the $$$ thing

Must have been all these things...I know Billy came up with the bass line to Miss You (Wyman said as much). As I said in my Black & Blue thread, they dealt with using songs Billy and Ronnie came into those sessions with by saying "Inspired By Billy Preston" for Melody and "Inspired By Ron Wood" for Hey Negrita. Why not just give them proper credit? I do think it was quite odd for Billy to have his own mini-set in the middle of a Stones show, and I do agree that the band became a little too funked up during the end of this phase of their career.

there's so many stories about this, heck i've even heard b.s. that preston and jagger were lovers. i think it basically boils down to keith kicking his heroin habit and adding his imput to the way the stones did things once again. it was no longer the mick jagger show. preston had too much creative imput and it was taking the stones away from what works best ,and that is being a rock band

Glam Billy has stated that story in interviews. I can't pull out the exact one at this moment, but it was a recent interview prior to his death, I think around the time of the Concert for George, where he recounts basically writing Miss You during the El Macombo rehearsals.
I agree with the argument that Keith was sick of being much more funk oriented than rock, and wanted to pull back from that. Hence Some Girls stripped down inner city punk sound. But he couldn't hold back the tiger of Miss You. They all knew that was a killer riff that would bring them back to the forefront again.

Yeah I agree whitem8.

How they got away with the "inspiration" thingy has me stuffed. He clearly was involved in the songwriting process just as "Hey Negrita" was a Ronnie riff that the songs revolves around.

As for "Miss you", Jagger wrote that and even if Billy did put the bass line to it, it's not writing the song.

As for Preston's influence, well I like B&B alot so I'm glad he was around for that. I love SG so I guess I'm glad he wasn't around for that. SG is very much I've always thought a Mick album. Aside from Keith's number, BOB and co writing "Faraway eyes", did he pitch in with anything else there?

Anyways, I gotta pop on "Melody" now. Man that's a cracker to my ears....

>i think it basically boils down to keith kicking his heroin habit and adding his imput to the way the stones did things once again.

By Keith's account that came later, during the ER sessions.

>I agree with the argument that Keith was sick of being much more funk oriented than rock, and wanted to pull back from that. Hence Some Girls stripped down inner city punk sound.

Maybe but Keith was still in the kicking stage at that point; I think it was Chris Kimsey that said Keith is given too much credit for the SG sound, that it was really Mick & Ronnie's sound, as Keith was too involved w/getting off junk at the time (hence Mick's very sudden prominence on guitar).

So true, but I think he got more behind the SG sound than he did with the Billy stuff. And I think his detox odyssey went on for a long time, many years...

mercy: since when is Keith opposed to funk?! yes, he is on record as saying
that in the mid-70s non-Stones were influencing the band's sound too much,
but that's a very far cry from being "anti-funk" [turning up Talk Is Cheap way loud]

I agree, "Dance" is more funky than "Hot Stuff" (not to mention "Big Enough").

Yeah, no doubt about it, Keif is into funk. But he wasn't into Billy hogging the show. Actually, it is cool listening to the Stones back Billy! They sound cool doing his solo stuff. Big Enough is a great slab of pure Keif funk!

Keith has said that it all got too much when Billy Preston turned up with his own sound engineer.



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>Actually, it is cool listening to the Stones back Billy! They sound cool doing his solo stuff.

I agree, I like his segment on the bootlegs I've heard; the Stones get to just groove and not be Mick's backing band for a change. If you go back and read some of the (then-)contemporary reviews Billy's set is frequently singled out as a highpoint of the show.

From timeisonourside.com:

BILLY PRESTON (1946-2006)

Texas born Preston has made a career out of being an excellent session keyboardist (piano, organ, synthesizer), but also enjoyed relative success on his own in the 1970s with a string of mid-sized hits. Preston was a child prodigy who got in the business very young, playing with Ray Charles and Sam Cooke among other people. His biggest break, however, was playing with the Beatles in 1969, recording their ill-fated album and movie Let It Be with them (he also plays on I Want You, featured on Abbey Road), and playing with them on their final rooftop concert in London. That allowed Preston to start his own career with Apple Records at the same time as he started making the rounds in the musical circles, bringing his soul and gospel influences with him to bands like Delaney & Bonnie.

Through most of the 1970s (1970-76), Preston was a player onstage and on record with the Stones, and he appears on all their albums from Sticky Fingers to Black And Blue. He became most visible during the Stones' 1975-76 tour (documented on the 1977 album Love You Live), where the Stones regularly allowed him to play a few of his own songs during their set. One of his stand-outs is certainly his duet with Mick on Melody, featured on 1976's Black and Blue. (His material was slightly later also used, credited or uncredited, on Tattoo You.) During this same period, Preston played with a number of other groups and artists that tended to share the same sessions musician, including Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Stephen Stills, and the three ex-Beatles Lennon, Harrison and Starr.

Preston's career slowed down in the 1980s and 90s, but he has continued to contribute to people's records, including in more recent years people like Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, Yoko Ono and Me'Shell Ndegeocello. In 1992, Mick recorded his third solo album Wandering Spirit in Los Angeles and hired Billy Preston again, after all these years. Many of the Wandering Spirit players appeared again on the Stones' Bridges to Babylon 5 years later, since the band recorded in Los Angeles. Preston was no exception and his keyboards can be heard on Saint of Me.

Billy Preston died of illness in 2006.

Oh brother, this thread *hexed* me into buying Billy's LIVE EUROPEAN TOUR cd -- no regrets though! Mick Taylor on guitar; the one time I met Preston he told me he didn't even own a copy of that album!

There where arguments over royalties for Love You Live, Preston wanted more than Jagger would give him, it even stalled the release. But also Jagger has mentioned that due to the punk movement he wanted to return to the basics of the raw R&R version of the Stones.

Mathijs

Yeah, Billy's live in Europe is a stellar live release! Taylor is on fire, and it is full on rock/funk. I met Billy as well at a Beatles conference in Chicago, years ago, before all his legal issues. And he was a funny, cool, and strange cat! We poured into an elevator stoned to the gills and he was there with an "assistant" a west indian looking teenage boy, that seemed to be more than an assistant. Go Billy! And then we chatted a bit, and he signed my copy of Bangladesh album. And he did a Q and A that was very cool. He was really into recounting his memories playing during Let it Be and said the Roof Top gig was a blast.

Great thread! I did some searching on Ebay on Preston and I found out that Billy wrote "You are so beautiful" covered by Joe Cocker; that is a great song. I also noticed on a Billy's greatest hits a song called "I'm really gonna miss you". Although I haven't heard the tune, I wonder if that song sounds like The Stones Miss you ?
Rock and Roll,
Mops

wasn't Preston involved with some under-aged boys late in his life ??