Billy Preston, a piano prodigy and Grammy Award winner who performed with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and wrote "Nothing From Nothing" and the Joe Cocker hit "You Are So Beautiful."

 

Billy Preston was a piano-playing child prodigy; by the age of sixteen, his resume included session work with Mahalia Jackson, Nat "King" Cole, Little Richard and Sam Cooke. He also had his first solo release, a gospel record called "Sixteen-Year-Old Soul."

 

died June 6 at Scottsdale Healthcare Shea in Arizona of complications from a kidney transplant. His health problems followed years of substance abuse.

 

He met the Beatles in 1962, during the Fab Four's Hamburg phase, and struck up a friendship with guitarist George Harrison. His relationship with the band deepened and he played with the Beattles as astudio musician on the Beatles's "White Album" and "Abbey Road" releases. He received label credit as a keyboardist on the "Let It Be" album. Harrison also co-produced two early Preston albums, "That's the Way God Planned It" and "Encouraging Words."