Billy Preston - Will It Go Round In Circles (1973)

Billy Preston was a very talented guy, and he made a lot of great records of his own. He also played on a lot of records by other artists, and he helped to make those some great records too. That's my opinion, and I'm the first to admit that my opinion doesn't mean much in the scheme of things. Billy doesn't need my approval. His career can stand on its own.

Or can it? He was such a cheerful guy, unrelentingly cheerful, that we mostly missed the fact that he had a lot of unfortunate drama in his life. We missed it unless he got arrested. Towards the end I think that the memory of the records was being crowded out by the tales of arrests and drugs and court cases and underage boys getting assaulted. He died pretty young too, Billy did. Had the old hypertension, big time, he found out the hard way that cocaine is for horses, human beings don't have the body weight to deal with that kind of pressure.

These are some great records, though. "I wrote a song, it ain't got no moral. Let the bad guy win every once in a while." I've got a story like that myself. I might even finish it someday. Yeah, as soon as somebody can convince me that there's more than a plugged nickel in a self-published novel.