RIJAN Music was created in 2003, when Rick Sikes, due to a chronic circulatory disease, suffered a leg amputation and could no longer walk. 

He was not the kind of man that could just give up and no longer be productive.  He established RIJAN Music as a way to stay active and continue to contribute to the family's finances. It provided a place for others to come for music lessons (he especially loved teaching the children), a place to purchase supplies or just to share a song and hear a good story.  His favorite saying in life follows:

"ALWAYS DO THE BEST YOU CAN WITH WHAT
 YOU HAVE WHERE YOU ARE"
-Teddy Roosevelt

RIJAN Music became a music store and more.  He and Jan created a publishing company and built a recording studio, where many local artists came to record.  He owned a vast collection of Country Music memorabilia accumulated throughout the years and pictures of artists he worked with or had booked hung on the walls in the recording studio.  When you came to record with Rick, you always got a story or two and perhaps a bit of wisdom passed on.

Being the "thinker" and "doer" that he was, he also began to make customized acoustic guitars. As a youngster playing music in the 40's and hanging around all the old pickers, he began to wonder why there couldn't be a solid body or "slab" guitar. So, he took an old lap steel and went to work in his Dad's carpenter shop making a neck, frets etc to modify the old instrument. It worked and Rick wound up trading that home-made slab guitar to another picker for a really good Gibson acoustic guitar. 

That said, he began to think about the sound hole in a Dobro and why that wouldn't work on an acoustic guitar.  He took the idea and made a modified acoustic guitar calling it "Creative Sound" in 2008.

There are pictures below of the "Creative Sound" guitars he made, and a total of 21 are in existence.  If you are lucky enough to own one, you own a classic Rick Sikes creation!

Rick having always been a "little different", would come up with things that are/were different and creative. It was noted, by Ralph Emery, that Rick was the first person known to have recorded a country trumpet solo. In 1966, he recorded Sammy Wells on a 45 rpm record, produced by himself and Dean Beard. Side A was "The Minute You've Gone" and Side B was "Hello Dolly". "Hello Dolly" was the trumpet solo.

Rick became one of the first people in Texas to use a monitor on stage. He got to thinking that the band needed to hear themselves, so built a monitor speaker and turned it around on stage to face them. He said he caught a lot of flack from other bands at the time saying he was crazy and that the audience needed to hear the music, not the band. Of course, nowadays, no band anywhere would think of trying to perform without monitors. Funny how things and times change and how someone's crazy ideas become common place.