Artist:Omar & the Howlers
Song:Wall of Pride
Album:Wall of Pride
The blues rock band Omar & the Howlers have been around since the 70s. The thing I noticed when I was looking at their discography, they have bounced around so many different record labels it would make your head spin. The 1988 album Wall of Pride is one of three albums that they recorded for Columbia in an attempt to sell them to a mainstream audience. I presume this was influenced by the success of guys like Stevie Ray Vaughan in the 80s. Omar Dykes was born in 1950 in McComb, MS which is also Bo Diddley's hometown. Dykes learned to play guitar as a teen and played local clubs. He formed The Howlers and they moved to Austin, TX where the music scene was more active. When the rest of the band returned home, Dykes stayed in Austin and formed Omar & the Howlers. They recorded a couple of albums on small labels. When his buddy Stevie Ray Vaughan got a record deal with Columbia, Dykes must have asked him to put in a word for them. The 1988 album Wall of Pride was the third of three Omar & the Howlers albums on Columbia. The album was produced by recording engineer David Manning. Dykes wrote most of the songs including Wall of Pride with his manager Kevin Wommack. The band was Eric Scortia on keyboards, Bruce Jones on bass and Gene Brandon on drums. It looks like Jones is still with the band. Brandon died in 2014. Wall of Pride is available as a budget CD. Since leaving Columbia, Omar & the Howlers has recorded for the Dutch label Provogue, Watermelon Records who closed when they lost their distribution deal with Sire Records, the German label Ruf Records, and the German label MIG. Dykes has also released several albums on his own label Big Guitar Music. He has also released a few solo albums. His latest release of new music was in 2017. It looks like he has been busy releasing music from the 70s version of Omar & the Howlers. Here's Omar & the Howlers performing Wall of Pride in Germany 2005.
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