One of the few people to have performed with both the Beatles and the Stones. He was even on the Apple Records rooftop. http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/06/obit.preston.ap/index.html
He also has to be remembered as the owner of one of the greatest afros in the history of 20th century music.
one of the 648 candidates for the title of The Fifth Beatle. he was damn good, I saw him once. the man new how to entertain.
RIP recently saw the tribute concert to George Harrison and Billy sang a great version of My Sweet Lord
This is going to sound bizarre but he did a kick-ass performance of some soul/gospel number on Howard Stern back in the 90's. They used to play it during the opening of the show for a long time. I wish I could remember the song and an mp3 of it. I think it was just him and a keyboard.
I glad that I saw him, even if it was only once. At that faintly surreal Lennon tribute thing at Radio City a few weeks after the WTC attacks (I was a seat-filler). He did a storming version of Imagine with Yolanda Adams.
Billy had it all covered. I remember him in the '60's on some Shindig/Hullaballoo type variety show and he could just smoke some dumb song like nobody else. He jammed between sets and was generally better than the acts they paraded out. The Beatles rooftop concert and parts of that movie made it pretty clear to me that BP put a lot of real soufulness in anything he did. RIP.