Derek Taylor's sleevenotes to the original Apple release praised Preston as a wonderful new signing. "Billy Preston is the best thing to happen to Apple this year. He’s young and beautiful and kind and he sings and plays like the son of God."
Preston himself wrote in the notes:
Music is my life and every day I live it, and it’s a good life to everything I want to say through music it gets to you. I may not be the best around but I’m surely not the worst. I learned to play and sing since the age of three, you don’t know how glad I am God laid his hands on me. Apple is the Company for all people that know where it’s at and love love peace love joy and all mankind. I am very grateful to be a part of it. It won’t be long before we change the whole system that holds and keeps the artist’s mind messed up. All thanks must be given to the fab Beatles. People should realize that what they have gone through has not been in vain and they are using it to the best of their ability.
Record Collector's reviewer writes that "[The album reveals] the organist to be an accomplished, spiritually engaging singer-songwriter."[6] In his preview of Apple Records' 2010 reissues, for Rolling Stone, David Fricke lists That's the Way God Planned It among his top five non-Beatle Apple albums. Fricke writes of the song "That's the Way God Planned It": "[Preston] would have bigger hits in the Seventies but never make a better one than this album's rapturous title track … The rest of the album is solid church-infused soul, with Preston covering both Bob Dylan and W.C. Handy."[7] Reviewing the album for Blues & Soul, Sharon Davis writes that "this is an extremely worthy release; reminding us of Billy's enormous and irreplaceable contribution to music."[8]
Track listing
All songs by Billy Preston, except where noted.
Side one
"Do What You Want" – 3:44
"I Want to Thank You" – 3:13
"Everything's All Right" (Preston, Doris Troy) – 2:44
