Billy Preston - Legal Troubles

Legal Troubles

In 1991, he was arrested and convicted for insurance fraud after setting fire to his own house in Los Angeles, and he was treated for alcohol and cocaine addictions. He also was arrested in 1991 for sexually assaulting a 16 year-old Mexican boy, after picking him up at a gathering point for day laborers. After submitting to a drug test, he tested positive for cocaine. That year, he entered no-contest pleas to the cocaine and assault charges. He was sentenced to nine months at a drug rehabilitation center and three months of house arrest.

Preston overcame his problems in the early 1990s, toured with Eric Clapton, recorded with Gary Walker, one of the vocalists in his Los Angeles based band, and worked with a wide range of other artists. He also toured with Ringo Starr and appeared on the 1990 live album Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band. He was also invited to become a member of The Band in 1991, after the death of their piano player, Stan Szelest. He completed a tour, but his above-mentioned legal problems put an end to the collaboration before they had a chance to record together in the studio.

Read more about this topic:  Billy Preston

Famous quotes containing the words legal and/or troubles:

    There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.
    —H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)

    Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops.
    E.Y. Harburg (1898–1981)