{"id":25686,"date":"2024-09-16T14:32:54","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T20:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-singer-inducted-into-colorados-country-music-hall-of-fame\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:24:10","slug":"local-singer-inducted-into-colorados-country-music-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-singer-inducted-into-colorados-country-music-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Local singer inducted into Colorado\u2019s Country Music Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Odis
Odis Sikes at the Colorado Country Hall of Fame event in Thornton on Aug. 25. (Courtesy Odis Sikes)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Montezuma County musician Odis Sikes was recently inducted into the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

He traveled to Thornton for the ceremony on Sunday, Aug. 25, at a bar called Dougie G\u2019s Lounge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cI didn\u2019t know there was a Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were 10 inductees, in addition to a handful of awards, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did almost like the Country Music Award thing,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cThey had a female vocalist of the year, male vocalist of the year, musician of the year, entertainer of the year \u2026 they did a whole thing. It was nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he was playing a gig last winter when a woman from the Front Range pulled him aside. She complimented his singing and told him her plans to nominate him for induction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI forgot all about it, I never saw her again,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cThen she texted me one day and said, \u2018You\u2019re gonna be inducted.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Susie Knight nominated him. She\u2019s a singer and was inducted herself in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis voice stood out to me. I like his tone, his vocals, his timing. I come from a family of professional singers, my mom and dad were classically trained. So I grew up with music,\u201d said Knight. \u201cAll the technical parts of singing, he has that mastered.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the event, Sikes played Hank Thompson\u2019s \u201cA Six Pack to Go.\u201d Knight said it was impossible not to dance, just like the first night she saw him perform near Ignacio.<\/p>\n

\"Odis
Odis Sikes poses with his award at the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame induction event. (Courtesy Odis Sikes)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cHe knew exactly how to please the dancing crowd,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sikes said he\u2019s always loved music, and he\u2019s still got the hi-fi turntable he listened to as a boy growing up in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d sit in front of that and listen to the radio, or my dad had some Hank Williams records, some Hank Thompson,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cI\u2019d sit in front of that thing and play records or listen to the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Sikes ever learned to play guitar, he served in Vietnam, in the First Infantry Division. He was 18 years old, and it was 1969.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until he returned and reached 22 or 23 years of age when he learned to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always loved music, loved to sing, but I didn\u2019t know how to play guitar,\u201d Sikes said.<\/p>\n

At the time, he was still living in Texas. Newlyweds moved in a few doors down, and the new husband had just been released from the state penitentiary. But, he played guitar.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s how I learned how to play. From an inmate, an ex-inmate,\u201d Sikes said.<\/p>\n

Sikes got his start playing music in church; he never thought he\u2019d play outside of that.<\/p>\n

But he met some guys in a band and one of them asked him to come audition. He landed the part.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played one gig, and they broke up,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n

After that, some time passed, and then he met a guy from Aztec.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d do a single, and he told me one time, \u2018You play guitar, and you sing good. I\u2019m gonna get you a job\u2019,\u201d Sikes recalled.<\/p>\n

He took Sikes to a place in Mancos that\u2019s not around anymore called the Silver Peaks, so he could meet the owner. He told Sikes not to worry about bringing a guitar.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst thing the guy asked me was, \u2018Did you bring your guitar?\u2019,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cHe wanted me to sing a couple of songs. Anyways, somebody had left a guitar there, so I played, and he hired me. I was kind of surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sikes first showed up to play at Silver Peaks, the owner said he hired a fiddle player named Red Greer to join him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first thought was, \u2018I hope he\u2019s good because I\u2019m not very good.\u2019 I hadn\u2019t been playing in front of people hardly at all,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cThe guy was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair played together for a while and kept playing together, even after Silver Peaks closed. One fateful day, Rick Shields, who Sikes would play with in the future, went to watch him and Greer perform, since Shields\u2019 dad and brother-in-law knew Greer.<\/p>\n

After the gig, they asked Sikes to sing at a chuck wagon 9 miles upriver toward Rico. The site is now a gravel pit, but in 1988, it was where Sikes played music every night for three months straight.<\/p>\n

Eventually, he started playing with the Shotfullaholes band, inspired by Sikes\u2019 and another member\u2019s service in Vietnam. Gabe Garcia, Cheryl Johnson, Darris Greer and Sikes made up the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think we were a great band, we were just having fun. But people liked us, and we played a lot,\u201d Sikes said.<\/p>\n

And then another four-piece band got together: with Sikes as the frontman, Rick Shields on bass, Eddie Fosnot on drums and Carl Johnson on steel guitar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started playing and people started asking us to come back, you know, and then Ellis (Miller) came along and played with us, and he\u2019s been playing with us ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donny Johnson, Carl\u2019s brother, would play bass sometimes. Ellis Miller plays everything: Guitar, banjo, harmonica, piano.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re called The Vanishing Breed Band and have been playing together since 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve played with other guys, but these are the main ones,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cBe sure to put their names in there, because if it weren\u2019t for them, I would\u2019ve probably quit playing music a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band plays traditional country music from artists that Sikes said inspire him most, who are \u201ccountry to the core.\u201d Artists like Merle Haggard, George Jones and George Strait, to name a few.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe play \u2026 country classics,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even tell you who\u2019s on the Top 40 radio.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point in the interview, a kind waitress at Blondie\u2019s delivered three classic breakfasts to Sikes, his life partner, Melanie Filener, and a Journal <\/em>reporter. Between bites, conversation continued. Filener broke the silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, one of the neatest things you\u2019ve done is play for Veteran\u2019s funerals,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s been an honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The song he plays is called \u201cAnother Old Soldier\u201d by Mark Collie. Collie supposedly wrote the song about his dad, who was a veteran of three wars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t tell you how many veterans\u2019 memorial services they ask me to sing that song,\u201d Sikes said.<\/p>\n

He proceeded to tell a story about a friend of his who died a few years ago. The friend had served in Vietnam on riverboats.<\/p>\n

That friend had heard Sikes play the song at another veteran\u2019s funeral, and \u201che came up to me and said, \u2018When I die, I want you to sing that song at my service,\u2019\u201d Sikes said.<\/p>\n

So when he died, Sikes made a point to uphold the promise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Well, you know, I\u2019ve got to sing this song. I don\u2019t know his kids or anything, but he asked me to sing this song\u2019,\u201d said Sikes. \u201cSo I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Filener emphasized how great it was to see him recognized a few Sundays ago.<\/p>\n

Knight, the person who nominated him, echoed the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all realize that at this point in our lives, we\u2019re not going to become household names,\u201d said Knight. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter \u2026 we love to perform; we love to sing. And to be recognized for the years and years of devotion to what we love doing is \u2026 an incredible honor and that\u2019s why I\u2019m so happy for Odis,\u201d Knight said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

accepted the induction in August<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79050,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25686\/revisions\/79050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25686"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}