Omar captures you and takes you on a multifarious musical journey with his husky voice and an effortless guitar playing that only the best can achieve. His creative song writing and showmanship makes it well worth the trip.  He appears to barely touch his Strat with his intricate talent as he delightfully entertains.  How do you describe his style?  Traditional blues, funky, swamp blues, a little rock-n-roll, all are found on his latest CD, Big Delta on Blind Pig Records.

A recent show at J&J Blues Bar featured Omar and The Howlers with Barry Bihm on bass and drummer “Frosty” Smith (has worked with Lee Michaels, Sly & The Family Stone, Steve Miller Band and many more).  Before the show, Omar sat with me in the beer garden for a casual interview.  It`s comfortable talking with him.

At a party the other night a gentleman by the name of Harry mentioned I should ask you about Eraser Head.  He said it`s your favorite movie?

Yeah, it used to be, until Sling Blade came out.  Have you ever seen Eraser Head?  It`s dark like that.  It`s real black.  (His voice deepened.) Yeah, it`s great.

He also wanted me to ask you about Fast Eddies.

Fast Eddies!  Good Lord!  The only place on earth that would put our silhouettes up.  They made us stand there and pose and they painted our silhouettes on the wall.  That was cool.  That was on White Settlement Road, right down the road.  Right back there, you know where Tootsie`s was?  On past Tootsie`s a little ways.  Fast Eddie, man!  He was a great one.  We had more fun.  The Barbeque King.  He had his portable barbeque out front.  It was rockin`.  That was fun.  You`re talking about a pretty good while back now.

Harry also mentioned a band, ‘The Blues Sparks From Hell`.

Yeah, we played at Fast Eddie`s with them.  See, I knew them from New Jersey.  They were a New Jersey band.  We played at a place called The Stanhope House.  It was this old great place that used to be a stagecoach stop and it was real ancient.  This family called the Wrobloki`s took it over and they were a great family.  All the guys looked alike.  They all looked like Jeremiah Johnson.  The first time we played there the youngest son walked up and I thought he was 25 years old.  He said (deep voice), “My name`s Bill Wrobloski and I`m 15 years old.”  I said, “Wooh!”  Then his brothers walked up and they were all giants.  Mrs. Wrobloski would chase me around with pies, “Eat another pie”.  It was just wonderful.  They loved us so they booked us there about four to six times a year and The Blues Sparks always played with us.  It was a co-bill.  It was a big deal.  We would flip coins to see who was going to open up or play last.  Then I brought them back here and they played Austin and they played Fast Eddies here.  Two crazy bands.

Our band was always called Omar and The Howlers.  Before that it was just The Howlers.  The Howlers started in 1972 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  I inherited the band name in 1977 and it became Omar and The Howlers.

Fast Eddie, here in Fort Worth, promoted us and Blues Sparks.  Fast Eddie is an auctioneer now.  I saw him at some gigs I played in Austin for the Cattleman`s Association and he`d be there because he`s an auctioneer.  It`s nice to see him in a different context.

I read that a band member gave you the name ‘Omar`.  Where does that come from?

Well, we used to be a party band.  Like we played for fraternities, sororities, just wild crazy stuff, comedy skits.  I used to lie on the floor, kick my legs up in the air.  I played a hollow body guitar and it would be screaming, like “wahhhhhh”.  He started calling me Omar Overtone.  It was a funny name for the situation, but everybody started calling me Omar and then the band had a strap made with my nickname on it.  It just stuck.  That was like 1972.  It`s funny how you get a handle like that.  If somebody says “Kent Dykes”, I don`t even respond.  I don`t even hear it.  Unless they say “Omar”, I don`t even turn around.

You were born in McComb Mississippi in 1950, the birthplace of Bo Diddley.  And you live in Austin now?

Yeah.  (The subject turned to getting older.)  I`m having fun.  Believe it or not, I`m having more fun now than I did when I was a kid.

Speaking of kid, you started playing or hanging in juke joints at a very young age.

Yeah.  I started playing when I was twelve years old.  Where I lived in Mississippi, there was a highway and all the black honky tonks and juke joints were on the other side of the road.  Of course, when I was a little bitty kid, things were pretty much segregated, although you could go into different clubs.  I wandered up there in my high top tennis shoes with my little guitar by my side, made me some friends.  You know, those older guys kind of humor you if you`re ambitious.  They showed me some licks.  They were real nice guys.  I didn`t know they were playing blues.  I didn`t know one thing from another, you know.  I didn`t realize they were playing blues until a couple of years later.  Then I had a little junior high school surf band, playing Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.  Like kids did back then.