Film Forum

Musical prodigy, admired and beloved by collaborators including Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Sly Stone, and others; dubbed “the fifth Beatle” for his co-credited “Get Back” recording; genius of gospel, rock, and funk as keyboardist, vocalist, and songwriter. Billy Preston was also troubled, underrecognized, and elusive—a closeted gay man raised in a Black church community that stridently condemned homosexuality (or pretended it didn’t exist) who later fell into drug addiction, tax debt, and imprisonment. Through electrifying concert footage and moving interviews with Billy Porter, Ringo Starr, Merry Clayton, and Preston’s longtime friend Eric Clapton, Emmy®-winning director Paris Barclay (NYPD Blue, Sons of Anarchy, Scandal) and writer Cheo Hodari Coker (Luke Cage) bring this unsung maestro front and center, with a revelatory story of what might have—and should have—been.  

Presented with support from The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund and The R.G. Rifkind Foundation Endowment for Queer Cinema
 
2024     105 MIN.      USA     ABRAMORAMA  

Trailer

Reviews

“Mind-blowing... Moving and vivid... The movie has abundant archival footage of the musician, who died in 2006, walking into a studio, settling in at a keyboard and running through a song he’s never heard before and doesn’t have the sheet music for—flawlessly and soulfully... As tough a life as Preston had, the music that buoys this chronicle is a constant source of joy.”
– Glenn Kenny, The New York Times

“Right from the start, BILLY PRESTON: THAT'S THE WAY GOD PLANNED IT, the first-ever documentary on the late pop-R&B singer, songwriter, and organ maestro, makes it clear that few communicated as much unabashed, unapologetic joy onstage as Preston. In its opening scene, from George Harrison’s 1971 CONCERT FOR BANGLADESH, Preston starts singing the warmly exhorting gospel song that gives the film its name. Overcome by the music, he leaves his seat behind the keys and commands the stage with dance moves he learned in church—elevating the song, the show, and himself. Throughout the doc, directed by Paris Barclay, Preston is seen continually flashing his outsized, gap-toothed grin as he works out the electric piano part in the Beatles’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down,’ dances onstage with Mick Jagger when he toured with the Rolling Stones, and plays glistening piano behind Joe Cocker and Patti LaBelle during a duet of ‘You Are So Beautiful,’ which Preston co-wrote before Cocker made it his own. Every second of those and other performance clips in the doc communicate the way Preston was in the pursuit of happiness through music.”
– David Browne, Rolling Stone

“An eye-opening look at the organ prodigy who fused with the Beatles and helped to forge funk... But as the documentary reveals, Billy Preston was an elusive figure—ebullient and all there, and also hidden and mysterious.”
– Owen Gleiberman, Variety