‘American Idol’ director: Don’t limit yourself

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.

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