Keeping It Real

Remember when pop stars used to look like the rest of us?

Remember when many of them were average Joes and plain Janes, meat-and-potatoes types with bad skin and worse hair, like Bryan Adams, Huey Lewis, Pat Benatar and that chick who sang "Mickey"?

C'mon, Eddie Money didn't look like a star, he looked like a dude you'd call when your toilet was leaking.

But those days are long gone.

Today's popsters are buffed to a sheen, a Stepford army of Barbies and Kens who've somehow escaped from their packaging, who've become famous without ever having written a song, without knowing how to play an instrument and in many cases, without ever having played a single show.

Maybe this is why America fell in love with Taylor Hicks last spring, because he has the rumpled air of the guy next door and looks kind of like your cousin Rick who always drinks too much at the family picnic and passes out in the pool.

"I come from Alabama, that's middle America," Hicks says of his earthy appeal. "I'm the guy who played at the bar down the street who you used to go hear on Friday nights. It's relatable, because it's real. There's no facade here. I'm a musician, a working musician, and I'll always be that."

Yeah, but working musicians aren't what one normally associates with "American Idol," that pop culture behemoth that rocketed Hicks to fame when he won the competition last May in front of 36 million viewers.

With a few exceptions, not many seasoned musicians make it very far on the show, instead, big voices and bigger smiles tend to win out.

But Hicks was different.

Prior to "Idol," he recorded a pair of independently released albums and made the rounds for 10 years in dive bars and roadhouses in his native Birmingham, Ala., playing throwback R&B rooted in an era when Marvin Gaye still was among the living.

For him to even audition for something like "American Idol" seemed like a stretch.

"I guess it was just an opportunity," Hicks says of his decision to try out for the show, which he did in Vegas. "I mean, let's face it, it's very tough to have your voice heard, and that's an outlet -- especially in Alabama. The record execs definitely don't travel through there."

It's hard to imagine them being drawn to Hicks even if they did. He's a gray-haired 30-year-old who grew up listening to Otis Redding and Sam Cooke and whose sound reflects as much: It's a more organic, nostalgic take on soul than the hyper-produced, hip-hop influenced R&B of today.

There's nothing hip about it, and Hicks himself is something of an anachronism, grounded in the past, like classic rock radio come to life.

"I heard Ray Charles for the first time, and I've pretty much had the disease ever since," Hicks says of what made him want to become a musician. "I started singing at about 13 or 14. I started mimicking the Commodores and Lionel Richie. I could sing like people. I realized that I had to branch out and try to create my own voice."

About that voice: It's an unassuming baritone reminiscent of Michael McDonald's soul-lite yowl. On his self-titled debut, Hicks belts out aw shucks platitudes -- "Life without love would be a living hell" -- backed by easy-does-it horns and organ.

It's a poised, approachable sound that's made Hicks a household name.

"It does take some time to get comfortable with the surroundings of fame," Hicks says. "That's something that I'm learning to deal with. I happened to sign a few autographs before I was the American Idol. I could count those on one hand, but it definitely gave me some experience.

"The intensity level, you'll never be able to get used to, because at this level, it's a lot," he adds. "But you learn, and I think that through staying grounded and keeping your head down and realizing that the music is what got you here, things can be a little easier."

"Easy" is a relative term for a guy who toiled for more than a decade before making it in the music business.

It's an unlikely success story from an even more unlikely star.

"Look, I knew what I wanted to do," Hicks says. "I've had to put all the pieces together because I knew how hard this business was. You have to write, you have to sing and you have to play an instrument, and once you cover all those bases, you can have a shot," he says, pausing for emphasis. "Whether that shot is big or small, you will have a shot."