Out of curiosity, I played the first song on your playlist through the studio monitors in my office. In seconds, my 8-year-old and 11-year-old daughters ran in and started dancing. I clicked to the second track. “Do you know this one too?” “Yes.”Third track?” “Ummmm, yes – I know this one too.”
I’ve never seen them react to music with such obvious delight. I’m an audio junkie with great hi-fi equipment, always keeping my ears open for new stuff. I wasn’t aware this existed ten minutes ago, but it’s already become my kids’ favorite music somehow. Thanks for the tip!
What do I know about Billy Preston? He showed up in the studio and played with the Beatles and he had a few hits in the early seventies sporting a giant afro. He was always smiling, I thought he was a happy-go-lucky guy.
Turns out that was not the case.
Obviously I know a bit more, but that was my impression, of someone lighthearted, not tortured. But that’s what Billy was.
A theme explored throughout the film is Billy’s sexuality. Bottom line…he was gay. Oh, there are theories that when Kathy Silva left him for Sly Stone it turned him off women. But this film says that was not a romantic relationship.
And this film alludes to abuse early in Billy’s life, but I had to go to Wikipedia for the details. Which says Preston was abused by the pianist of a touring company of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and subsequently was abused by a pastor too.
Not that Billy ever talked about it. Other than to his last manager, Joyce Moore, who revealed these details.
Yes, you can watch this entire film and still not know who Billy Preston was…because he was internalized, didn’t reveal his feelings seemingly to anyone. No one in this film can testify as to his inner monologue, his thoughts, and there are a lot of people talking.
That’s what makes this documentary different from most. It wasn’t done on the cheap. Today anybody can make a film, and oftentimes they do. Which ends up being opinion and whatever footage they can scrap together, because back in the sixties and seventies there were no home video cameras and film was expensive…
But there is a good amount of film of Billy. He was a prodigy. I don’t remember “Rolling Stone” or the other rags saying this, then again did Billy get short shrift because he was Black? Although the white rockers were inspired by the Black delta bluesmen…it was a white business, very much so, Jimi Hendrix was an anomaly.
But there’s footage here of Billy playing in church, on TV with Nat King Cole… This is not the traditional avenue of a white rocker, that’s for sure. The white rockers were off the radar screen before they broke through, but Billy’s talent was recognized right away, and he was exposed, he even made records, but they didn’t penetrate the white market.
And Billy played in church. The conundrum here is Billy got his inspiration and community from the church which preached against homosexuality, and this film says many men in the choir were gay and…for all the progress we’ve made, the pendulum is swinging back, did you see they removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall Monument? They don’t like people who don’t look like them and act like them…ironically, it is the outsiders, those who are different, who provide so much of the entertainment for close-minded people.
Anyway, Billy goes on the road to England with Little Richard and he’s just a teenager, fifteen or sixteen, I heard both in the movie. This is an age when kids are still in high school. And what you see on the road…
And the Beatles met Billy when they all played in Hamburg. Which is set up well in this flick, such that when he shows up in the studio it truly is just a friend dropping by, whereas previously it appeared Billy was an opportunist.
But the thing with Billy was… He could pick up a song on the fly, add a solo the first time through. The footage with the Beatles will jet you right back to the era, when everybody was still young, you’re stunned they could come up with this stuff.
And Billy makes music for Apple and then George gets him a release and he signs with A&M and…
There’s “Outa-Space,” I loved that song. But there’s also “Will It Go Round in Circles,” which bugged me on the radio in my ’63 Chevy all through the summer of ’73, the convertible only having an AM radio. I just didn’t like it, seemed a trifle, too simple.
Which is actually what Billy and his co-writer thought it was. But it became a hit.
Of course Billy wrote “You Are So Beautiful”…which became Dennis Wilson’s signature song, when he sang it in concert there was a pathos, with his ultimately gruff voice, absent from the rest of the show.
And, of course, Joe Cocker had a hit with the number. And one of the absolute highlights of the film is when Joe and Patti Labelle perform “You Are So Beautiful” at the 50th anniversary concert at the Apollo. Your jaw will drop, it’s akin to Aretha giving that tour-de-force performance at the Kennedy Center Honors. I had to do research… This concert was broadcast, but I never saw it. It’s a time capsule…you’ll be stunned that people so talented were walking the earth and performing.
And Billy’s playing in the background…
Now Billy was tight with George Harrison, and that led him to Eric Clapton, who put Billy in his band and then realized it was Billy’s show…not because he hogged the spotlight, but because he was so damn good.
And you see that over and over and over again, you see what the Beatles saw. This guy would just sit down at the keys and what came out was exactly right, you couldn’t have predicted it, but there it was.
And then Billy’s peak is over.
We get great stories before that, from the studio engineer and his co-writer and his bass player…we normally don’t get this peek into the lives of Black people, too many believe they’re cartoons…but these guys are talking and they’re just like you and me. (Oh, give me sh*t, you’re better than me, you don’t have a racist bone in your body, you don’t see color…but it don’t really happen that way at all, as Pete Townshend wrote.)
And Billy’s got this best friend who gives the most insight.
And Billy steals the show at the Concert for George, but…
It eventually all runs out. That’s what always happens, time passes you by.
Now unlike Nicky Hopkins, Billy had hits on his own, so he had money. But what are you going to do when you’re famous but no longer hot?
Drugs. And alcohol.
Billy fell down the rabbit hole. Lost everything.
Now those of us who remember Billy, those of us who lived through his arc, forget these days when Billy was still on the planet, struggling.
He was the bandleader for David Brenner’s ultimately failed TV show, but…
This is what we never see. Yes, “Behind the Music” revealed the downward spiral, and Billy ultimately went down too, but before that…you’re famous but you will never reach the heights, get that level of adulation again. Where do you go from here? How do you make sense of life?
It’s well-documented that Billy ultimately went to jail, but this film is just not a recitation of facts. It tries to get to the heart of the real Billy. And it goes further than any previous exploration, but to a degree Billy remains an enigma.
But it was a different time. We didn’t know every move of everybody’s life.
But like I said, this film illustrates how Billy was a prodigy, and acknowledged even by his hero, Ray Charles.
It’s all here, the arc of Billy’s life. And it’s well done.
But exactly who Billy is…
He was a church boy who ultimately got into drugs? Was he just in that much pain? Could he not cope with falling from the mountaintop career-wise?
The gap-toothed smiling guy was just not the right person at the right time. He was so good he was undeniable, people wanted to work with him, he seemingly could do no wrong.
But the smile was oftentimes a cover.
This film isn’t perfect, because I’m still not sure exactly who Billy Preston was. However…
This is a guy who deserves recognition, the accolades. This is a guy who was a household name whose name seems to have been forgotten. This film puts Billy Preston back in the firmament, claims his talent and achievements. And it’s peopled with those who were there then, who knew the guy.
“The Soundtrack of the Doomscroll Generation? It’s Phonk. – YouTube Shorts and TikToks are often set to electronic dance music with rap roots that’s become the unconscious hum of vertical video while making its creators rich.”
In a world where people can’t stop complaining about streaming payouts, where newbies keep saying the business is stacked against them, this is a revelation. These people you’ve never heard of are making seven figures creating music for social networks and…
They seem to have no problem making bread, and they don’t have to play live to do it!
I listened to “Sahara,” which is mentioned in the article, and I was stunned… I expected some sting that I hear over and over again on Instagram or TikTok, BUT I LIKED IT! Which stunned me, since I find so much of the Spotify Top 50 slides right off of me.
And the Spotify Top 50 acts are so busy being brands… This phonk music is like the music scene of yore, the music speaks for itself and the music is enough.
Note: I can’t help myself, because if I write anything that doesn’t comport with expectations, that doesn’t feed the narrative, my readers go berserk. Ticketmaster and Spotify are the enemy… Anything that doesn’t align with the music business paradigm of the pre-internet era is the enemy, to be dethroned. God, now we keep hearing about AI music… If you’re afraid of AI music that just means you’re not creative enough. Because AI cannot replicate feel, emotion…furthermore, it cannot push the envelope and create something new, something never done before… It can’t create “Sgt. Pepper” based on only hearing “Meet the Beatles.” And I say all this for those who have a knee-jerk reaction saying phonk isn’t music, that the people who are making it aren’t artists… No, this is the new world, this is like psychedelic music emerging in the era of AM Top 40. This is the future, not a jet back to the past, but something new and different (always influenced by the past, everything evolves from the past). If you’re not excited by phonk and its popularity and money-generating ability then you’re already in the rearview mirror. MAGA doesn’t work in music. The past might have been great, but the only way the future will be better is if you create something new and different.
Meanwhile, I created an AI phonk playlist on Spotify. You should sample it… The styles vary, like the article says, there’s now even Brazilian phonk.
This is very exciting… I haven’t been this upbeat about music since…Spotify itself!
Spotify AI phonk playlist: “Phonk 2026”: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RY84e9ls2m99iGVgqZWLV?si=2e8e390554684f66
The only reason Casey Wasserman hasn’t lost his gig as the head of the L.A. Olympics in 2028 is there’s no deep pocketed money involved. No single source with assets at risk. Unlike his talent agency. Which is majority-owned by Providence Equity Partners.
Don’t mess with money. Never ever.
The music business used to be one of scrappy entrepreneurs. But that changed nearly sixty years ago when Warner purchased Atlantic and Elektra. There’s been consolidation in the label sphere ever since. To the point where there are only three major labels left.
One is part of Sony.
Another is Warner…which hired Robert Kyncl to make the trains run on time and create growth. You see it’s a public company, a pure music play, and the numbers haven’t been good. Can Kyncl pull a rabbit out of the hat? So far he’s been unable to, despite all the gobbledygook about AI and new avenues of revenue. It’s basically a music company, and it depends on hits. And the truth is unlike in the past, there’s only a limited amount of recorded music revenue available. As in despite all the hoopla about physical product, the truth is that almost all of the income from recordings at the three majors comes from streams, and unlike physical product, there’s a finite amount of money to be generated. This is not like the era of physical product, where someone who hasn’t bought a record all year will suddenly purchase a Whitney Houston or Fleetwood Mac album… No, the three majors are fighting for slices of a defined pie… Sure, there are areas of growth, increasing the size of the pie, subscriptions in relatively undeveloped territories, but if you’re relying solely on revenue from consumption of recorded music…you’d better find another way to generate revenue.
Which is maybe a reason why Universal’s stock has taken a nosedive, down by double digits. Lucian Grainge might know music, but does he know money?
That’s why Michael Rapino is so successful over at Live Nation…he manages the investors, he does his best to keep the stock price up. Concerts may be sexy, but they’re subsidiary to the money!
AEG is different because it’s got one owner, it’s private. Like the music companies of yore…
But all the talent agencies took huge investments, allowing their top brass to experience huge paydays, but now what… Look at the shenanigans/changes at WME…it’s all driven by money as opposed to insight, the underlying assets.
As for Universal… The big story is activist investor Independent Franchise Partners has purchased a 3.01% interest in the stock… No one invests to lose money. People only invest to make money! They need a return on their cash. This is one of the reasons Merck lost control of Hipgnosis. When interest rates were low, the return on publishing assets looked good. But when the market recovered investors wanted a greater return on their money. Was Merck the guy to deliver this? No wonder Blackstone ended up owning the assets… They know better how to deliver a return… Talk is cheap, can you generate revenue, increase the asset value? That’s all that money cares about.
Which is why when you’re considering selling your publishing and/or royalty streams know that you might like the check, but have no illusion that you’re pulling one over on the purchaser. This is their business, money. If they can’t profit, they’re not going to make the deal. Turns out publishing only increases in value in the digital age. So you may have a pile of cash today, but in the long run the purchaser will end up with the revenue and the asset, in the long run they’ll end up with more money. This is their business, money, don’t think you can beat them at it.
This is what happens in a mature business. An influx of money which allows entrepreneurs to cash out and ultimate control by that money. This is not the rough and tumble music business of yore, where the guy with the gold chain around his neck is the final word when it comes to your career…no, that same guy today is wearing a three piece suit and thinking about the people he has to serve more than you.
Just like Live Nation… No individual act has the power of the sponsors. The acts are just the grease for the “flywheel.” Which is why Live Nation can pay so much/overpay for talent.
This myth of the all powerful entertainment executive is just that. It’s from the past. The people running these enterprises today are all sold out to the money. And if not yet, they will eventually. Money has superseded music in the music business. Which may sound counterintuitive, but it’s a fact. There are independent companies out there, and that’s where all the innovation lies, however they’re hobbled by the majors’ ownership of catalogs representing nearly the entire history of recorded music, giving them all the leverage in negotiations.
As for Casey Wasserman… He was no match for the money. Wasserman was gallivanting around, in the news, but he was no match for Providence, a nearly faceless enterprise, most people in Hollywood have no idea who runs the fund. Providence was not going to let its asset go to zero. Do you think Casey Wasserman wanted to sell his agency? Of course not, Providence made him do it. Because it wanted to protect the asset. Sans talent, there’s nothing left. Wasserman might have been a good front person, but everybody’s replaceable.
And expect Wasserman to be booted from the Olympic committee too. It’s just that politics works more slowly than money. But politics cares about money too, and the fear is that with Wasserman in charge, revenues will fall, so he’s got to go.
One could say Wasserman was too big for his britches. Or he didn’t know what he didn’t know. You don’t mess with money. And you keep your house clean. It’s one thing if you’re an act doing drugs, screwing up, the label which owns your contract might not like that, but it can survive without you. Then again, if you’re a superstar, they’re going to do everything to get you back on the right path. But if it’s the entire asset… Was Providence going to sit by and watch all the talent leave? No, it had to stanch the bleeding… Wasserman was expendable, not the talent agency.
So if you want to live the rock and roll lifestyle of yore, drinking and drugging, getting laid, being in TMZ, be my guest. But if you want to play at a higher level, where the money is, you’ve got to keep your house clean, especially in today’s world where there are cameras everywhere and so much information comes out. The Epstein files were just the straw that broke Wasserman’s back… It was the womanizing detailed in the “Daily Mail” article before that that truly ignited the fire, the Epstein files just turned it into a conflagration.
Mind your p’s and q’s if you want to survive at the top level.
And know that if you take the money…you’re serving the money, no matter what you think.
