Dave Alexander (blues musician)
Encyclopedia
Dave Alexander aka Omar Sharriff, Omar Hakim Khayam (born March 10, 1938, Shreveport
, Louisiana
, United States
) is an American
Texas blues
singer, and pianist
.
, Texas
. His father was a pianist and his mother encouraged him to play in the church. Alexander joined the United States Navy
in 1955, moved to Oakland
, California
in 1957, and began a long history of working with various San Francisco
Bay Area
musician
s. A self-taught pianist, he played with Big Mama Thornton
, Jimmy Witherspoon
, Muddy Waters
, Buddy Guy
, and Albert Collins
. Later in 1968, he recorded
his first song
s for the World Pacific label
release called Oakland Blues, a compilation album
of artists
from that city. He also performed at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival
in 1970, and has played at the San Francisco Blues Festival
, many times since 1973. He was also the warm up act at the Last Waltz at Winterland, Thanksgiving, 1974. He has also performed in Europe
.
Alexander recorded a pair of albums The Rattler (1972) and The Dirt on the Ground (1973), for the Arhoolie label
under his given name Dave Alexander. Songs include "The Hoodoo Man (The Voodoo Woman & The Witch Doctor)", "St. James Infirmary", "Blue Tumbleweed", "Sundown", "Sufferin' With The Lowdown Blues", "Strange Woman", "Cold Feelin", "Jimmy, Is That You?", "So You Wanna Be A Man" and "The Dirt On The Ground".
In 1976, he began to perform as Omar the Magnificent having changed his name to Omar Khayam.
He was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award in 1993.
In 1996 small blues label Have Mercy released Baddass, and followed it up with the hit
Black Widow Spider in 2000.
In recent years Alexander has been living and performing mostly in the Sacramento
area, where he has recorded on Have Mercy Records. Alexander is an articulate writer and advocate for the blues and African American
music. He has written several articles for the Living Blues
magazine
.
On Martin Luther King Day 2011, NPR Radio All Things Considered broadcast a segment about Marshall, Texas being the birthplace of the boogie-woogie
style of piano. The broadcast described how Dr. John Tennison, a San Antonio-based boogie-woogie musicologist, had shared his knowledge of the history of boogie-woogie with the citizens of Marshall, and how Tennison had located Alexander in Sacramento, California. Alexander performed in Marshall during December, 2010, to great acclaim. As of February, 2011, Alexander relocated to Marshall, Texas
where he now resides.
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Texas blues
Texas blues
Texas blues is a subgenre of blues. It has had various style variations but typically has been played with more swing than other blues styles....
singer, and pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
.
Biography
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1938, Alexander grew up in MarshallMarshall, Texas
Marshall is a city in Harrison County in the northeastern corner of Texas. Marshall is a major cultural and educational center in East Texas and the tri-state area. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Marshall was about 23,523...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. His father was a pianist and his mother encouraged him to play in the church. Alexander joined the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
in 1955, moved to Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in 1957, and began a long history of working with various San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
s. A self-taught pianist, he played with Big Mama Thornton
Big Mama Thornton
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record the hit song "Hound Dog" in 1952. The song was #1 on the Billboard R&B charts for seven weeks in 1953. The B-side was "They Call Me Big Mama," and the single sold almost two million...
, Jimmy Witherspoon
Jimmy Witherspoon
Jimmy Witherspoon was an American jump blues singer.-Early life and career:James Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas. He first attracted attention singing with Teddy Weatherford's band in Calcutta, India, which made regular radio broadcasts over the U. S. Armed Forces Radio Service during...
, Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
, Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...
, and Albert Collins
Albert Collins
Albert Collins was an American electric blues guitarist and singer whose recording career began in the 1960s in Houston and whose fame eventually took him to stages across the US, Europe, Japan and Australia...
. Later in 1968, he recorded
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
his first song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
s for the World Pacific label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
release called Oakland Blues, a compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
of artists
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
from that city. He also performed at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival
Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival
On a warm night in August 1969, several thousand blues lovers gathered in a small athletic field in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the first Ann Arbor Blues Festival. By the time blues icon B.B. King took the stage to close the show, it was clear that something magical was happening in this southeast...
in 1970, and has played at the San Francisco Blues Festival
San Francisco Blues Festival
Debuting in 1973, the San Francisco Blues Festival is the longest running blues festival in the United States. Tom Mazzolini, the event's producer, founded the blues festival to educate the public about the history and evolution of the blues...
, many times since 1973. He was also the warm up act at the Last Waltz at Winterland, Thanksgiving, 1974. He has also performed in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Alexander recorded a pair of albums The Rattler (1972) and The Dirt on the Ground (1973), for the Arhoolie label
Arhoolie Records
Arhoolie Records is a small record label run by Chris Strachwitz. The label was founded by Strachwitz in 1960 as a way for him to record and publish previously obscure "down home blues" artists such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Snooks Eaglin and Bill Gaither...
under his given name Dave Alexander. Songs include "The Hoodoo Man (The Voodoo Woman & The Witch Doctor)", "St. James Infirmary", "Blue Tumbleweed", "Sundown", "Sufferin' With The Lowdown Blues", "Strange Woman", "Cold Feelin", "Jimmy, Is That You?", "So You Wanna Be A Man" and "The Dirt On The Ground".
In 1976, he began to perform as Omar the Magnificent having changed his name to Omar Khayam.
He was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award in 1993.
In 1996 small blues label Have Mercy released Baddass, and followed it up with the hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
Black Widow Spider in 2000.
In recent years Alexander has been living and performing mostly in the Sacramento
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
area, where he has recorded on Have Mercy Records. Alexander is an articulate writer and advocate for the blues and African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
music. He has written several articles for the Living Blues
Living Blues
Living Blues is a bi-monthly magazine focused on covering the African American blues tradition, and America's oldest blues periodical. The magazine was founded as a quarterly in Chicago in 1970 by Jim O'Neal and Amy van Singel. Alligator Records owner and founder Bruce Iglauer was also one of the...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
.
On Martin Luther King Day 2011, NPR Radio All Things Considered broadcast a segment about Marshall, Texas being the birthplace of the boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
style of piano. The broadcast described how Dr. John Tennison, a San Antonio-based boogie-woogie musicologist, had shared his knowledge of the history of boogie-woogie with the citizens of Marshall, and how Tennison had located Alexander in Sacramento, California. Alexander performed in Marshall during December, 2010, to great acclaim. As of February, 2011, Alexander relocated to Marshall, Texas
Marshall, Texas
Marshall is a city in Harrison County in the northeastern corner of Texas. Marshall is a major cultural and educational center in East Texas and the tri-state area. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of Marshall was about 23,523...
where he now resides.
Discography
| Year | Title | Genre | Label | Recorded Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | The Rattler | Blues | Arhoolie | Dave Alexander |
| 1972 | The Raven | Blues, Jazz | Arhoolie | Omar Shariff; CD 1993 |
| 1973 | The Dirt on the Ground | Blues | Arhoolie | Dave Alexander |
| 1996 | Baddass | Blues | Have Mercy | Omar Shariff |
| 1997 | Omar the Magnificent | Blues | Arhoolie | Omar Shariff |
| 1998 | Anatomy of a Woman | Blues | Have Mercy | Omar Shariff |
| 2000 | Black Widow Spider | Blues | Have Mercy | Omar Shariff |