Vicki victorious: The Tonight Show's Vicki Randle talks about her long and winding road to the small screen. (music).

It's a scene so familiar, you can run it like a film reel in your head. The 11 o'clock news ends, and The Tonight Show comes on with that cacophony of brass and screaming fans. The camera swoops past Kevin Eubanks on guitar, and just to his right is that striking woman, the band's percussionist, tossing an exotic instrument high in the air, and then out comes Jay Leno, and--

Hold it. Let's rewind, back to the percussionist. She's Vicki Randle, and for 10 years she's been right up front, starting each show with her West African shekere, made from a hollow gourd. Viewers mostly glimpse the 47-year-old Randle through a fortress of congas, bongos, and bells--but every time the cameras cut away for a commercial, Randle takes center stage, leaping out from behind her drums to front the band, whipping up the crowd with her big soulful voice.

Randle's out at work and always has been. "They knew I was gay when they hired me," she says, sitting in the quiet Los Angeles home she shares with her red Siberian husky, Kodi. She gives high praise to both Leno and Eubanks for making life comfortable on the set. "Kevin's one of the most open people I've ever met," she says. As for Jay, "he basically outed me to everybody"--with a friendly wisecrack--"as soon as I got there."

The gig may look easy ... if you're up for taping a live show in front of millions five days a week no matter what. Randle's tasks vary: For the evening's comedy bits the band always rehearses music and effects. She may also be called on to sing or act in a sketch. Then there are those driving rock and funk tunes to keep the audience pumped up during the commercials. Out of a repertoire of hundreds, Randle explains, "we keep in rotation about 20 or 30 tunes at any one time."

Finally, there are the tunes the band learns in honor of musical guests. "I've had to sing Bonnie Raitt tunes [during commercial breaks] in front of Bonnie Raitt. It's nerve-racking."

Take, for example, the night Paul McCartney appeared. He'd been one of Randle's icons since her childhood in San Francisco. "Everybody was into Motown" at the Catholic schools she attended. "But I started playing guitar because I was listening to the Beatles."

Before the show Eubanks asked her to sing "Let It Be" with only the piano player. "I said, `Oh, sure!' That will make me comfortable!" quips Randle.

McCartney's people had been adamant that their star would not sing that night. But as Randle swung into the chorus of "Let It Be," she says, "I heard this sort of roar go up from the right side of the audience, and I looked over, and Paul's walking toward me. He came over and put his arm around my waist, and we did the rest of the song that way. It was an amazing moment."

The eldest of seven children, Randle could sing from earliest childhood. "They have recordings of me when I'm, like, a baby, 2 or 3," she says. "I was a precocious little kid. My first band was probably when I was about 13. I developed a public personality, which I've used for the rest of my career."

And what a career. She's sung backup for Aretha Franklin and Celine Dion. She's toured with Chaka Khan, Lionel Richie, and Kenny Loggins. She helped found the women's music movement of the 1970s, played bass for Laura Nyro, traveled the world with George Benson--and has more than 50 album credits.

As she was gaining national exposure onstage, Randle was figuring out her own sexuality. She's currently single. ("I don't do that thing--what's it called? Dating," she jokes.) But true to her San Francisco roots, she sees her lesbian identity in terms of politics. "I slept with men and women for years, until a woman finally said, `You've got to cut this out! If you're gonna have a relationship with me you can't have one with anybody else!'" Randle bursts out laughing. "I felt like I became a lesbian by default, but at the same time I was starting to understand that this was about more than just being physically attracted to a person of the same sex. It was a political and social construct."

As for her current professional partnership with Jay Leno's crew, she says, "It was never my ambition to be on TV. But I had the chance to play with an amazing group of people. Also I had the chance to make history. Say what you will, I was going to be the first woman in the Tonight Show band. I was going to be the first African-American woman in the band. And whether or not they knew it, I was going to be the first lesbian in the band. I've been given an incredible opportunity, and I just want to live up to it."