Billy Preston, That’s The Way God Planned It reviewed: child prodigy, ‘fifth Beatle’, restless soul

There’s a moment in The Beatles: Get Back documentary when the mood inside Apple Corps’ Savile Row studio suddenly lifts. Into the room walks Billy Preston — broad smile, easy charm, greeting everyone with a cheerful “Hiya!” Within minutes he’s at the electric piano, locking into the groove of “I Got A Feeling”, and the fraught Beatles’ sessions acquire a new sense of purpose. As Ringo Starr recalls, in Paris Barclay’s affectionate documentary, Billy Preston: That’s The Way God Planned It, he didn’t just play along — Preston lifted whatever song he was playing. “He was so great,” says Starr. “He never put his hands in the wrong place.”

Preston’s life was full of such moments: the gifted outsider who could transform a room simply by sitting at a keyboard. Yet the film also understands the deeper contradiction at the heart of his story. As one interviewee says, Preston “was made for showbusiness… and he was not made for showbusiness”. Merry Clayton concurs: “He had that smile, but his heart would be broken.”

Barclay traces Preston’s story back to Los Angeles, where he was raised by his mother Robbie Preston Williams, herself a singer with the Ladies of Song. Church was the centre of everything. The film shows how the Church of God in Christ became both training ground and stage. His sister Rodena ran the Voices of Deliverance choir; Preston himself directed the Church choir on television aged five. As performer Billy Porter observes here, the Black church is “the ultimate theatre”.

Aged seven, Preston appeared in the film St. Louis Blues alongside Mahalia Jackson and Pearl Bailey. By 13 he was guesting on The Nat King Cole Show, performing an original composition, “Billy’s Boogie”. Even at that age he seemed to glide effortlessly between gospel devotion and showbusiness sparkle.

Ray Charles becomes a lifelong mentor but the real leap into the wider world came via Little Richard. When Richard briefly attempted life as a minister, Preston joined his band, heading out on European tours while still in his mid-teens. The experience proved both exhilarating and unsettling. Richard’s manager Tony Jones recalls a teenage musician suddenly exposed to the excesses of adult touring life. But it also led to Preston’s first encounter with The Beatles in Hamburg.

By the late ’60s, Preston was already a seasoned session musician and collaborator, recording with figures like Sam Cooke and working alongside future funk pioneer Sly Stone. As engineer Glyn Johns remembers, Preston’s arrival at The Beatles’ sessions in January 1969 instantly changed the atmosphere: “He made the whole situation nine million percent better.” His contribution to Let It Be and Abbey Road led Preston to became the only outside musician ever credited on a Beatles single — prompting one newspaper headline to proclaim “The fifth Beatle is a brother”.

From there, the doors opened wide. Preston became part of the rock aristocracy, recording and performing with George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Elton John and the Stones. His own solo career flourished, too. Instrumental smash “Outa-Space” topped the US charts in 1972, while albums like I Wrote A Simple Song showcased his gift for blending gospel uplift with pop accessibility. As a songwriter, his hits included “You Are So Beautiful” for Joe Cocker.

Touring with the Stones, Preston brought a buoyant groove to their live shows — and, as Mick Jagger fondly recalls here, an ever-changing collection of flamboyant wigs.

But Barclay’s film never loses sight of the tension beneath Preston’s success. Fame came hand in hand with addiction and the complicated reality of being a gay man raised in a deeply religious environment. As Ray Charles Foundation president Valerie Ervin notes, the Black church long harboured many gay men even as it condemned homosexuality — a contradiction Preston struggled with throughout his life. He never recovered either from loss of his brother, when Preston was only a child.

By the 1990s Preston’s life had spiralled into substance abuse, legal trouble and eventual imprisonment. Bernard J Kamins – the judge who sentencing him in 1997 – admitted he feared Preston might die without intervention. In prison, however, Preston returned to the faith that had shaped him, forming a gospel choir and preaching to fellow inmates.

The final act offers a fragile form of redemption. Released from jail, Preston was welcomed back onto the road by Clapton. “To be able to give him a second chance, what a privilege,” he says. “There was a deep bond between me and Billy. We believed we could save one another. I thought I could help him, but I could only do what I could do.” But illness soon complicated matters — dialysis dictating tour schedules — yet the music never entirely abandoned him. A performance of “My Sweet Lord” at the Concert For George becomes the film’s emotional peak, Preston’s playing fusing gospel fervour with rock grandeur.

Barclay’s documentary doesn’t quite resolve the contradictions of Preston’s life — perhaps they were never resolvable. Instead, it honours the grace that ran through his music and personality alike. “He was a beautiful human being,” says one friend near the end, “and he deserved much better than he got.