Dave Alexander (aka Omar Shariff) born 10 March 1938

Dave Alexander, also known as Omar Sharriff, Omar Shariff, Omar Hakim Khayam (March 10, 1938 – January 8, 2012) was an American West Coast blues singer and pianist. 

Born David Alexander Elam in Shreveport, Louisiana, he grew up in Marshall, Texas. His father was a pianist, and his mother encouraged him to play in church. Alexander joined the United States Navy in 1955. Whilst in the drum and bugle corps he met Bobby Hebb. They hung out together for two years, making the San Diego bar rounds. Bobby with his spoons and ukulele and Dave on drums and piano. Bobby was an excellent showman and taught Dave how to handle any audience. 

After a brief return to Texas Alexander moved with his mother to Oakland, California, in 1957, and began a long history of working with various San Francisco Bay area musicians. As an accomplished pianist as well as a drummer, Alexander has worked with practically every blues musician on the West Coast since the late fifties. Big Mama Thornton, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Jimmy McCracklin, King Soloman, Johnny Heartsman, Sugar Pie and Pee Wee, Johnny Fuller, Lowell Fulson, Lafayette Thomas, L.C. Robinson, Vernon and jewell, Johnny Talbot, Eugene Blacknell, Eddie Foster, Charlie Musselwhite and Jimmy Witherspoon are just a few. 

In 1968, he recorded his first songs for the compilation album Oakland Blues, released by World Pacific Records. He performed at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival in 1970 and at the San Francisco Blues Festival many times from 1973 onward. He was the warm-up act at the Last Waltz, a concert staged by the Band at the Winterland Ballroom, on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976. He also performed in Europe.          

                              

            Here’s “Omar Shariff- Blue Tumbleweed” from 1972. 

Alexander recorded two albums, The Rattler (1972) and The Dirt on the Ground (1973), for Arhoolie Records, containing the songs "The Hoodoo Man (The Voodoo Woman and 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. Have Mercy! Records, a small blues label, released his album Black Widow Spider in 1993, followed by the hit Baddass in 1995 and Anatomy of a Woman in 1998. In the 2000s Alexander lived and performed mostly in the Sacramento area, where he recorded for Have Mercy! Records. He was an articulate writer, contributing several articles to Living Blues magazine. and an advocate for the blues and African-American music. 

On Martin Luther King Day in 2011, the NPR Radio program All Things Considered broadcast a segment about Marshall, Texas, as the birthplace of the boogie-woogie style of piano playing. The broadcast described how Dr. John Tennison, a boogie-woogie musicologist in San Antonio, had shared his knowledge of the history of boogie-woogie with the citizens of Marshall and had located Alexander in Sacramento. Alexander had performed in Marshall in December 2010, to great acclaim. He relocated there in February 2011. 

As Sharriff he had a steady gig, playing every Thursday and during festivals. But, the joy of playing would quickly fade when he would return home as he was battling severe pain due to cardiac and circulation problems. On January 8, 2012, Alexander was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Marshall, Texas. He was 73 years old. 

Close friend Jack Canson said “He was doing very, very well and was looking like he was in a whole new chapter of his life," said Canson. "But, unfortunately his medical problems just overwhelmed him and he just could not cope with them in the end. We've lost not only a terrific musical artist and a wonderful pianist, but we've also lost a piece of history that cannot be replaced." 

(Edited from Wikipedia, KTBS, Shreveport & Arhoole liner notes)