Rickey Minor (photo by Matt Sayles)
By Jon Bream
Rickey Minor, the music director responsible for many of the successes and disasters on "American Idol," will leave that show at the end of the season to become bandleader for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
Minor is the guy on Idol who works up the arrangements with each singer and runs the rehearsals.. He has been instrumental in making and breaking contestants. He was a tell-it-like-it-is guy.
For example, on Season 7 when Brooke White wanted to accompany herself on guitar on "You're So Vain," Minor told her that she wasn't good enough to play live on Idol. In the end, she agreed with him, White recently told the L.A. Times.
More importantly, Minor was the major person who kept the Idols Live show together. He was often the one who suggested the songs, the combinations and permuations of performers. Not to mention working out the arrangements.
Can you imagine what will happen this summer with this crappy crop of singers on tour and no Rickey Minor? Can you say train wreck.
Minor also has served as music director for tours by Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Whitney Houston and Christina Aguilera. (He knows divas.) He will start on "The Tonight Show" on June 7.
