Omar Shariff

Texas blues singer and pianist Omar Shariff entered the world on March 10, 1938. He moved to San Francisco during the 1960s, and under his birth name Dave Alexander he cut two albums for Arhoolie in 1971. After taking the stage name Omar Shariff he stayed out of the spotlight and stayed away from studios for the next twenty years. The Raven, assembled from ten tracks recorded in 1991 and seven from 1972, signaled his reemergence. A W.C. Handy Award nomination arrived in 1993. Have Mercy, a modest blues imprint, issued Baddass in 1996 and Black Widow Spider four years later. Both sets delivered raw, unvarnished blues whose titles—“My Life Is a Nightmare,” “Seven Years of Torture”—revealed the singer’s perspective. Anatomy of a Woman followed as a concept album centered on Shariff’s favorite theme. He stayed a little-known yet thoroughly blues-rooted performer until his death on January 8, 2012.