"I didn't find out until years later, until I had become an adult and my father told me the reason he brought us out of there, is that if that man had tried to whip him, he was going to shoot him." Instead, Nicks' father moved the family to South Bend where he had relatives. And that's where the country song stops and the Motown sound begins. Billy Nicks, a former member of the Motown group Junior Walker and the All Stars of the 60's ("How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You"), today at 71 still performs four or five nights a week in one of his two groups, the Bill Nicks Jazz Trio, and the Rhythm Rockers.

First interested in singing, Nicks got started playing the drums as a junior in high school. "I saw the Central High School Marching Band marching in a parade and I watched this young man, Harold Webb play and then it hit me - that's what I wanted to do ... I borrowed a pair of sticks from a friend and began practicing. I'm self taught, practicing on chairs and books."

After spending time on the road and living in Los Angelas, Nicks returned to South Bend where he also teaches music privately, and for the last two years, as an adjunct professor at Notre Dame. What he teaches is reflected in what he does: "I have to practice more because I want to continue to learn and continue to develop too because I hate that regressive state and that's what happens if you don't stay on top of this," said Nicks.

He also believes in knowing the music: "I tell students, don't be a radar drummer...one that sits down and thinks that just because they are playing drums they can do any old thing on a song as long as the timing is there...a good drummer should learn the song. And that's what I try to do with every song I play; most of the time I can run the lyrics down to you. That's the best way you can go all out and come back in because you know where you are the whole time."

Nicks sometimes plays the drums with his hands, conga style, inspired by Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat" song. "I bought a single conga drum....and later on I gave that drum to my brother because I discovered that there's two different techniques involved when it comes to playing the congas and bongos and the set and I did not want to lose that sensitivity with my fingers and my hands or the dexterity with the sticks."

Nicks doesn't speak much about his career in music without a reference to God in his life. Asked about what he is thinking when he is playing with his eyes closed, he commented, "I just shut everything out and just concentrate on what I'm doing there. One thing I realize, music is a spiritual thing, and with me that's what I'm dealing with."

Nicks likes a variety of music and credits his mother with exposing him to country, opera, classical, jazz and blues. But being a pioneer of sorts, he has his favorite: "Motown. Come on - let's face it, that's a part of my being, that Motown thing."