Its hard to say why Billy Preston didn’t make a bigger name for himself. He had incredible talent as a keyboard player and singer and was well connected to some of the biggest names in the industry. Thanks to the latest Beatles movie, everyone now knows that Billy was a big part of the band towards the end to the point that George Harrison hoped to make him a full fledged Beatle, unfortunately the others weren’t on board with this idea. Around this same time, Preston had several big RnB/pop hits and just about stole the show in the “Concert for Bangla Desh” concert movie in which Billy outshone big names like Bob Dylan, Leon Russell and George himself. Billy was a star in the early 70s, but as we moved into the later half of the decade, Preston seemed to fade fast.
One of the last records Billy put out before he started having a hard time getting record deals was the funkafied, “A Whole New Thing”, it’s a whole new thing because Billy decided to immerse himself in the funk sounds of the day along with a bit of disco too. The music on here is quite good, several tracks would liven up any party and the instrumentals are a real treat because they show off Preston’s chops on the synthesizer, a relatively new keyboard at the time and probably part of the ‘whole new thing’ concept of the album. Billy’s funk has a good dose of gospel to it which makes him similar to Sly Stone, Graham Central Station and the Isley Brothers. Towards the end of side two, some really hard P-funk sounds start to make their appearance as well.
This is good music and Billy can sing and play with the best of them, so why wasn’t this album bigger. The funk scene of the late 70s was much about fantasy and bigger than life personalities. EW&F had their pyramids and Egyptian mythology, George Clinton had his spaceship and a host of cartoon like characters and James Brown still had his status as a spokesperson for the black community. Media-wise , Preston couldn’t compete and the fact that his squeaky clean music often lacked a certain ‘nastiness’ that is essential to funk, probably didn’t help either. All the same, looking back at ‘Whole New Thing’ from the distance of several decades, it’s easy to see that this album should have gotten more attention. For the crate digger and rare groove fan, some of these instrumentals are worth checking out, especially the two on side two.