Omar & The Howlers

Austin, Texas-based guitarist and singer/songwriter Omar Kent Dykes matches the classic profile often associated with American blues performers: tall stature, a preference for cowboy boots, and a resonant voice carrying a pronounced Southern drawl. Yet beneath that rugged exterior lies a calm, thoughtful artist who has mastered the art of captivating audiences at both intimate blues venues and sprawling festivals. While Columbia Records releases helped him build a substantial following stateside, much of his performing life has centered on European clubs and festivals.

Born in 1950 in McComb, Mississippi—the same birthplace as Bo Diddley—Dykes began frequenting local juke joints at age twelve. After taking up the guitar he returned to those same spots, and following high school he spent several years in Hattiesburg and Jackson before settling in Austin in 1976, drawn by reports of a rising Texas blues scene. At the time, Stevie Ray Vaughan was still performing with Paul Ray & the Cobras. By the early 1980s Omar & the Howlers had established a strong reputation through their energetic live performances, issuing two independent albums: Big Leg Beat in 1980 and I Told You So four years later.

Columbia Records took notice of Dykes’s singular approach and signed Omar & the Howlers in the mid-1980s, though the association proved brief. The band delivered Hard Times in the Land of Plenty in 1987 and Wall of Pride in 1988 before being dropped after the label’s acquisition by Sony. Dykes pressed on undeterred, and his productivity remained exceptional. Beginning in 1991, Omar & the Howlers recorded three albums for Rounder/Bullseye Blues—Live at Paradiso in 1991, then Blues Bag and Courts of Lulu in 1992—before moving to Austin’s Watermelon Records for Muddy Springs Road in 1995, World Wide Open in 1996, and Southern Style in 1997.

After fifteen years of label commitments, Dykes chose to operate without long-term ties. He and the Howlers subsequently placed strong releases with Discovery (a 1997 reissue of the 1990 album Monkey Land), Black Top (Swing Land in 1999), Blind Pig (Big Delta in 2002), and Ruf Records (Boogie Man in 2004). Ruf also issued the live recording Bamboozled, captured in Germany, in 2006.