Rick Sikes…your spirit, strength and legacy will live forever in our hearts through your many stories, songs, poems and art.  You are deeply missed by all who knew you and whose lives you touched.

Rick Sikes, born into an era of time when music was the primary source of entertainment, quickly discovered he was not cut out to be just a listener, but a performer as well.  At the age of 14, living on a farm outside of Coleman, Texas, he wrote his first song called "The Bluebonnet Waltz".  He went on to become a very successful musician/ songwriter, playing in most every Honkytonk, Air Base and auditorium in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and for a time in California.  He became a regional star of sorts, including creating a live weekly music show on KPAR TV out of Abilene, Tx. in the 1960's.  He and his band, The Rhythm Rebels, had the distinction of fronting artists such as Bob Wills, Red Foley, Loretta Lynn, Bobby Bare, Sonny James, Kenny Price, Frankie Miller and Willie Nelson, just to name a few.

He wrote hundreds of songs and recorded most of them in his life span.  Other artists have recorded his music as well and his wife, Jan, continues to promote his music and writings through whatever means possible today.   

MEN LIKE ME
The hours and flowers
Are not often gone
Until the seasons of youth
Have so swiftly flown
Battles raged throughout the years
Against fate's ill decree
Scarred, torn and weary-worn
I wonder if this world
Has a place for men like me
People coldly shun
Turn without care
Deaf to cries of suffering
Seeking fantasy to hear
Life, played in varied parts
By gentle and fierce hearts
Doles out it's casted roles
Even to the realist misfit souls
Eyes of the people are not blind
They just refuse to see
Denying we even exist
The realist…the fools
Men like me
                                                                                    Rick Sikes

Rick left this earth on May 1, 2009 at his home in Coleman, Texas.  This site is dedicated to his memory and the many writings and wisdoms he left behind.

"The most beautiful thing in Life is that our souls remain hovering over the place where we once enjoyed ourselves.  I am one of those who remembers such places regardless of distance or time.  Let not your worrying about the future interfere with your tranquility."
                                                                                    Rick Sikes

Two Documentaries, live interviews with Rick, have been filmed; one by Michael Crabtree and one by Carolyn Emanuel.  There has been a screenplay written about a portion of his life and Jan is working on a book of their life together.  Josh Alan Friedman wrote a chapter about Rick in his book, "Tell The Truth Until They Bleed" published by Backbeat books in 2008, available on Amazon.com.  A chapbook titled "Rhythm Rebel",  was published by Wowapi press in 1996 and Rick himself chronicled his life in a book he called "A Farm Boy, A Roughneck, A Cowboy Picker, A Convict, The Rick Sikes Story" yet to be published.