@story MARLA CANTRELL
It’s not what you’d expect from back-to-back rejections, but this is what aspiring singer-songwriter Becky Reeves said getting turned down by American Idol – once in Nashville and then in New Orleans – did for her. “It made me more confident. If somebody would have told me I’d go and get passed over twice I probably would have thought, Oh no. Don’t go. It’s going to make you more insecure. But it did just the opposite.”
It took a lot for Becky to try at all. For most of her life she felt her music was a personal, private thing, something she did alone in her room, or in front of friends and family. But there was one exception: church. Her mother, confident of Becky’s talent, set up solos on her behalf, not only at her church, but at churches across the Fort Smith area.
“She kept me going,” Becky said. “I wasn’t able to just sit back and do nothing because I knew she’d ride my back about it. I hated it at first. I was a teen, awkward, and I worried about what my friends thought. I’d cry and cry. The older I’ve gotten I’ve become more and more thankful for it. It pushed me until I could push myself.”
Becky has played a few small venues and has a new demo album. Those who believed in her kept telling her she was meant for American Idol. This summer they finally convinced her. In July the pre-school teacher headed to Nashville. “There were 16,000 people at the Bridgestone Arena,” Becky said. “I was up at two in the morning and didn’t get out until six in the evening on the day I sang Me and Bobby MaGee.”
The process began on July 16 when the contestants signed up and received ID wrist bands. It continued on July 17, when the thousands of American Idol hopefuls filled the stadium. They were divided into groups of four, then waited in long snaky lines for their turn with one of ten producers. The sections were divided only by black curtains, so while Becky sang for her allotted thirty seconds, she could hear nine other voices rising. “There were thousands of people staring down at you. It’s very intimidating. When your line is finished, they call you forward and tell you yes or no. You exit and it’s over.”
She went back to her hotel room in Nashville, made more than a dozen calls home, and then passed out. And this is what surprised her: she wasn’t unhappy at all. “It was good for me to push myself to my limit, to do the scariest thing you can imagine. From that point on, nothing is as scary. I’d decided if I failed in Nashville, I’d go on to New Orleans. Then I wouldn’t have any what ifs. What if I got a different producer. What if I sang a different song.”
On July 26, she performed along with 10,000 others at the New Orleans Arena. She picked a softer, folksy melody,
Feels Like Home. For the second time the answer was no. “I literally laughed when they said it. Whatever, I thought. I just felt like two no’s weren’t going to stop me.”
The rejection changed her. “I realized this is what I want to do, whether it turns out to be in a big way, or just playing around town. When I was first starting out, I was often told I sounded like Janis Joplin,” Becky said. “I lived in such a little bubble; I didn’t know who she was. I bought a CD set and I found a common soul, someone who struggled.”
It’s the struggle that unites us. And it’s the music that pulls us through. “Songs are what people turn to when life’s hard,” Becky said. “They put a song on repeat and listen again and again. We live the phases of our lives through music. It makes you think and it inspires you. What a gift to be able to be part of it.”
The double no from this summer is exactly what Becky needed. It set her course, shifted something inside her, and lit a fire. She is just beginning to realize the power of her own music. “When I recorded Your Song, I had people in the room crying. That’s intense. That’s not somebody else’s. That’s your heart, that’s your life, that’s your struggles, pain, your words and your questions. And you’re singing it, you’re vulnerable, and it’s affecting people. You want people to be feeling what you are.”
As for American Idol, she only has one more chance. When auditions resume next year, she’ll be twenty-eight. That’s the cut-off age for contestants. She hasn’t decided whether she’ll try again, but she wouldn’t trade her experiences in Nashville and New Orleans for any amount of money. Becky is both driven to perform, and content to see what happens next. It might be the perfect combination for this artist’s continued success. “I’m going to play every chance I get. Everywhere I’m asked. I just want to live my life and not have any what ifs,” Becky said. “I don’t think any of us get the life we imagined at the beginning. Too much other stuff happens. Things change course. We get stopped, or we stop ourselves. But I do know one thing. Whatever my life looks like in the end is fine with me.”