He may not be the flashiest dancer. And of the five
 Boys, he probably has the fewest lead parts to sing.  But behind
 the scenes, it is Kevin Richardson, the one the others sometimes
 call Freight, who keeps the speeding Backstreet train on track.
 A perfectionist, Kevin approaches each task~ wether it's giving
 a pep talk to his fellow singers during the Teen People photo
 shoot or making sure a steak is barbecued just right~ with
 the take-charge manner of CEO. "My dad was probably the
 one who instilled that in me," says Kevin, 26, taking a break
 between Walt Disney World's Grad Night
 show underneath Cinderella Castle, the very place he used to
 suit up as Alladin when he worked there in 1993. "'He would
 always say~ pardon my French~ 'If you're gonna half-ass it, don't
do it at all.'"
              His father Jerald's death from colon cancer six
 years ago made Kevin "a lot more serious," says Brian, who's
 also Kevin's cousin ( Brian's dad and Kevin's mpm, Ann, are
 siblings ). A Kentucky native, Kevin joined the Backstreet Boys
 soon after moving to Orlando. At 21, the baby of the family ( his
 brothers are Jerald Jr., 33, and Tim, 30 ) suddenly found himslef
 a big brother to his new bandmates~ three of whom had yet
 to finish highschool. But Kevin's self-appointed role as the
 groups watchdog doesn't always sit well with the others.
	"I think deep down inside he feels that his contribution
 to the group is to be the oldest and to make sure everything
 is straight. That's just the way he is," says Brian. "But here I
 am, gonna be twenty-four, and I really don't need Kevin telling
 me what to do."
	"The fellas probably think I'm the hardest or the 
roughest or the meanest," admits Kevin, "but I'll cry at the drop
 of a hat sometimes."
	And in public, no less. When the group played in his
 home state for the first time, Kevin teared up upon spotting his
 family in the audience. He also wept during a show on their last
 trip to Montreal: "there was a kid in the front row, and I knew
 he was blind. He couldn't see us, but he was smiling. I said
 to A.J., 'He's blind, go and touch his hand,' and A.J. did. And 
I just started crying, you know? I just lost it." 
	Though the cutthroat music business can sometimes
 be unsettling for this family-oriented country boy ( record execs
 have tried on occasion to break up the group by offering
 certain members solo contracts ), Kevin says fans like that one
 make it all worth while.
	"We're touching people's lives and making people
 forget about their problems for a moment." He pauses. "That's
 what music is all about, I think."