Billy Preston - Live European Tour (1974)

Billy Preston was an American singer-songwriter and keyboard player, best known for his talents on the Hammond organ.

In 1973 Billy Preston went on tour through Europe with The Rolling Stones as their guest keyboard player. At the same time he also served as their opening act with his own band (consisting of fellow keyboard men Hubert Heard and Kenneth Lupper and drummer Manuel Kellough, plus Rolling Stone Mick Taylor on guitar). His set was recorded, and a live album was produced - Live European Tour came out in 1974. On it he performed a selection of his own songs (including both instrumentals "Outa-Space" and "Space Race"), a number of Beatles tunes ("Day Tripper", "Let It Be" and "Get Back"), and the Ray Charles hit "Let's Go Get Stoned". In fact three of these covers ("Let It Be", "Get Back" and "Let's Go Get Stoned") he knew well as had appeared on the original recordings as a session musician.

The album came together perfectly to showcase the high energy and character of Billy Preston's music - to have such brilliant, funky music before the Stones even hit the stage, these must have been some amazing concerts!

In 2003 a new version of the album was released on CD. It featured a slightly different track list (including his own "That's The Way God Planned It" and a Hammond organ arrangement of "Amazing Grace"), and in fact all the songs were different versions to those on the original LP. Rather than try to decide which edition is better, I have put them both together as one double album.

Everybody Likes Some Kind Of Music (1973) <|> The Kids & Me (1974)
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