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‘American Idol’ director: Don’t limit yourself

“American Idol” music director Rickey Minor shares motivational wisdom and childhood memories in his new book, “There’s No Traffic on the Extra Mile.” In this excerpt, Minor reminisces about the early influences in his life and his start in the music business.
/ Source: TODAY books

“American Idol” music director Rickey Minor shares motivational wisdom and childhood memories in his new book, “There's No Traffic on the Extra Mile.” In this excerpt, Minor reminisces about the early influences in his life and his start in the music business.

I grew up in South Central Los Angeles, Watts to be specific. It is a place where a lot of people end up staying for the rest of their lives, whether they prefer it that way or have no other choice.

There are many places throughout the world that look, smell and feel exactly like South Central. These types of places are usually reserved for people who are all but invisible to the rest of society. These are the neighborhoods situated on the outskirts of the city proper where you come to stay as a last option — when you can’t afford to live anywhere else. In New York, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C., London, Paris or Rio, you’ll see the same kind of slums, where the air is thick with despair and hopelessness. Despite it all, there’s an enduring culture of love, family and community that has a vibrant pulse. People go to church and talk on their porches or in their front yards. Children play, skip rope and frolic in the water of the fire hydrant in the summer.

Like every other kid in Watts, I didn’t know that there was any other way of living. I got up. I rode my bike, got chased by dogs, laughed with my friends and ate Popsicles. I didn’t question things. I did the best I knew how to go through life happily. But as I got a little bit older, I began to feel a drive inside myself. I knew innately there was more for me waiting outside the neighborhood. It’s hard to say whether I was born that way or if it was something I learned, or a combination of both.

For me, it has never been about getting away from Watts and the people of my community, about being richer or about achieving something bigger and better than where I came from. For as long as I can remember, those things have not driven my ambition. It’s all been about achieving my personal best.

I was actually born and spent the first eight years of my life in Monroe, Louisiana. It was a small town, mostly dirt roads, and the few that were paved didn’t have any sidewalks.

The most exciting thing in town was Saturday night at the Elks Club: the B.Y.O.B. (bring your own bottle) dance with a disc jockey playing records. This was the early to mid 1960s, and the Klan was all around, too. Living in such a tense, segregated place made a deep impression on me. Even as a small child, it bothered me that people of different races weren’t working together. I’m certain that those early memories have driven me to make sure that I work with all races, ethnicities and genders.

Go west!My grandmother Donia Minor was the matriarch of our family. She moved to Los Angeles with my aunt Dixie after going out there to visit her sister Anna in 1967, and she never returned to Louisiana. She had the incredible vision to say, “We all need to be in California. This is the place where we need to be.” Hers was that kind of matriarchal energy that never allowed dust to settle, and she knew exactly what needed to be done right on the spot. She took care of business, and made sure that I, her grandson, did my share as well. She always dressed like she was going somewhere, with the hemline of her skirts cut just below the knee. She wore a tightly cropped wig and glasses that were the fashion of the time. I don’t think she owned a pair of tennis shoes.

From an early age, I was aware that my grandmother had risked everything when she moved to California without a concrete plan or any guarantees. She worked as a housekeeper for the actor Steve McQueen, taking the bus to his beach house in Malibu. She saved enough money to get a one-bedroom apartment of her own that was always spick-and-span. It wasn’t long before she got a larger space and sent for my uncle Frank and my stepfather John Blevins. Soon after that, the rest of the family came out on the bus. It took three days to go across country in the sweltering heat of the summer. I was 8 years old.

Since I was the eldest boy, I lived with my grandmother and my uncle Daniel (who is hearing impaired) during the school week. On weekends, I stayed with my mother, stepfather and my four siblings, Kathyrn, Victor, Cheryl and John Jr. We lived in the Jordan Downs Housing Projects in Watts, three bedrooms and one bathroom.

After going back to school, my mother, Helen Blevins, became a nurse — she worked the 3 to 11 p.m. shift at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California. My stepfather, John Blevins, got a job as a carpet layer for a company that operated out of Hollywood. Things were starting to look up.

I was awed by the courage my grandmother had to stop, pick up everything, and move to another location to pursue a better way of life. Go west. The thought of what she did challenged me and continues to inspire me today. I thought, “If she can do that from there, then I can go anywhere.”

I always knew I was not going to be defined or limited by my circumstances. I learned that happiness was not based on having what you want but wanting what you have. It is as simple as saying to oneself, “This is my room. It’s not very big, but it is so much better than what I started with.”

When life serves you what you believe is unjust and unfair, always remember, your roots are your strength and your foundation. They are not your limitations, and should never become your excuse.

Whenever my uncle Frank had to get gas or wash his purple Chevrolet Impala, he’d always invite me to ride along. On these trips and others, he showed me the city. It was a big thing to get out of the neighborhood, to see the palm trees in Hollywood and everything else between the ocean and the mountains of L.A.

This exposure to life outside the projects must have made a difference. Not that I was that much more worldly than the others in my community. The universe I perceived was measured in just tens of miles. I was years away from taking my first airplane ride. It was hard looking at a map and imagining other cultures and languages beyond my own. People from foreign countries talked funny, and I had little consideration that they might think the same of me.

Perhaps it comes as no big surprise that the title of this book stems from that metaphor of driving a car. The trips in that purple Impala represented the discovery of a universe of limitless possibilities in my young mind. Remarkably, that feeling has never left me.

Today, the destinations on my daily drive, as I replay it in my mind, may be all about fulfilling commitments and responsibilities, my accelerator keeping up the pace to stay on schedule. But in some ways, I remain as impressionable as the young Rickey, with a sense of wonder and gratitude at the mystery of how things unfold.

I always looked up to Uncle Frank. He was truly a father figure to me, since I never met my own. He was 6 feet tall and thin, he dressed well, and he embodied that deep sense of social consciousness of the 1960s. But suddenly, he was gone. He was drafted to Vietnam, where he would spend the next three years. In the void of his absence, I could have fallen through the cracks, but he had taught me something valuable that stuck with me: the importance of finding positive role models. If I could look up to him, there were other adult figures out there for me to find and look up to as well. Looking back on it, my role models all had something fantastic in common. They were all people who had found purpose and passion, not only in their jobs and professions, but most important, as caring human beings.

Something bigger around the corner
It seemed that each and every one of the buildings in the Jordan Downs had its very own group of boys trying to emulate the Jackson 5 — and our building was no different. We called ourselves the Sensations.

Uncle Frank took an interest in us and started taking us around to various talent shows at the local nightclubs. Our group would have to stay in the back until it was time to perform because we were only 12 years old and couldn’t be in an environment where there was drinking. We started winning several amateur competitions, and as a result, we were getting offers to play real gigs and get paid. Our first jobs were at the local military bases.

There was one main thing that set us apart from the competition. My uncle paid for our singing lessons. As part of the instruction, we learned how to do barbershop harmonies. It was an oddity at these talent shows to have a bunch of 12-year-old kids singing in that style. But that’s how and why we won. We would begin our performances by singing along to the Jackson 5 records. It was a no-brainer. They knew we could do that. But for the encore, we’d come out and do five-part harmony, and that gave us an advantage. We weren’t just a group that could dance and sing like they expected. We did something completely unexpected.

The Jacksons happened to be the flavor of the month at that time. Name any major artist today, the only way they got in the door was by showing up at an audition and demonstrating how good they were at sounding like Aretha, Whitney or someone of that stature. Until we had our base, we took a little bit of this and a little bit of that, borrowing from the successful artists who were doing what we wanted to do.

If you’re really serious, it will take more than just desire and practice. You will need to be proactive and look out for opportunities to put yourself in an environment where you can learn and grow. Become an apprentice or an intern and be willing to sweep the floors or fetch the coffee if necessary.

You can’t become a mountain climber unless you’re willing to go to the mountain. You may not ultimately become the leader of the company, but what an advantage to work with and learn from the best.

Reprinted with permission from “There’s No Traffic on the Extra Mile” by Rickey Minor. © Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group, USA, 2009.