During the Stax/Volt, "Soul Music" boom in Memphis in the sixties, Rick found himself playing in an R&B band at every chicken joint and frat house in the southeastern United States. Determined not to have his career shortened by nerve deafness, or a stray bullet, he enrolled in Memphis State University where he hid in the library for six years. Two degrees and thousands of dollars later, he left school totally prepared for life in the sixteenth century.

It wasn't long before Rick's career options narrowed to teaching school, playing guitar or hanging wallpaper. Making what he determined at the time as "the obvious choice," he began a marvelously successful career as a wallpaper hanger. It was during this time that Rick met his future bride, Janis. Their brilliant future in wallpaper seemed assured until Rick discovered that Janis had a beautiful voice and he hit upon a plan to capture fame and glory. They would start a duet; write several hit songs; sell millions of albums; parley the fame into a political career for Rick – possibly running for President.

Somewhere along the way they ended up in Nashville (since 1978) where Janis signed a record deal with RCA records with Rick-co-producing. In 1981, they both signed recording contracts with Elektra Asylum. By 1982, they had written and recorded their first single with Rick once again co-producing. They followed record label-head Jimmy Bowen from Elektra Asylum to Warner Bros., and then from Warner Bros. to MCA. Along the way they had a few more singles and also toured, but the writing career always seemed to do better than the recording career.

In 1983, Rick wrote Reba McEntire's first number one hit I Can't Even Get the Blues No More and co-wrote with Janis and Chip Harding three top ten hits for the Whites; You Put the Blue In Me, Hangin' Around and Pins And Needles. Rick also had success with album cuts on such artists as Conway Twitty, Karen brooks, Loretta Lynn, Lacy J. Dalton, Johnny Rodriguez, Janie Fricke, Ronnie McDowell, T.G. Sheppard, Pam Tillis and many others including three more Reba McEntire cuts.

In 1994, Rick signed an exclusive writing deal with peermusic. Some of his recent activities include: co-writing (with Steve Wariner) Longneck Bottle, included on both Sevens and Double Live and selling in excess of 18 million copies; co-writing again with Wariner for the title track on the Gold selling album, Burnin' The Roadhouse Down; and sticking to tried and true co-writing partners (Steve and Janis) for a cut on Wariner's Gold selling 2000 Capital release, Two Teardrops, entitled If You Don't Know By Now.

Future activities include the title track and first single to ALABAMA's upcoming RCA release, When It All Goes South, as well as a cut with Asylum's Chalee Tennison.