“I love the music, but it got so hard. Sometimes you’ve got to raise the white flag and go, ‘I gave it everything I had.’”

Due to health issues, Kent Dykes, known to all as Omar, thought his career was over until LeRoi Brothers drummer Mike Buck and Bluebonnets guitarist Eve Monsees persuaded him to help them on a project.

“They called and asked if I’d sing on something,” Dykes recalls. “I said I’d try, and we did Lightnin’ Hopkins’ ‘Mean Old Twister.’ Then Mike wanted me to sing ‘Purple Haze,’ but like Howlin’ Wolf. We ended up doing four songs, and it was fun. They said if I wanted to do my own record, they’d be my band. My wife, Issa Medrano, and I starting writing songs.”

The result was the blues-drenched roots-rock of What’s Buggin’ You, which holds up to the high standard Dykes set with a catalog of two dozen albums, solo or with his band, Omar & the Howlers.

During the recording of 2017’s Zoltar’s Walk, Dykes contracted a mysterious flesh-eating disease. By 2018, with his future uncertain, a fundraiser was held in Austin, with Marcia Ball, Derek O’Brien, Ted Roddy, and others performing for the beloved bluesman.

“I got real sick. My arms got weak and turned black,” he recounts. “I went to five doctors who couldn’t help. Finally, I went to a dermatologist, who put me on steroids and then antibiotics, eight months in all, and it went away. But my arms are so skinny now, I can’t mash the chords down. I was only able to play rhythm on the new CD. Eve and Jason Crisp played great lead.”

Indeed, the hefty rocker used to punish Strats, bending notes by pushing down on the body and up on the headstock. “One time I pushed the truss rod out the bottom of the fretboard. You could hear it cracking. Time for a new neck.”

The 74-year-old, who grew up in McComb, Mississippi, remembers, “When I was 14, I played with authentic blues guys, but I didn’t know it at the time. I made Joe Willie Wilkins and Houston Stackhouse (Sonny Boy Williamson alumni) play ‘Walk, Don’t Run’ at a used car sale. Of course, I thought they were terrible,” he laughs. “I didn’t know enough to know they were great. They kept talking about Robert. But not Robert Johnson; they were talking about Robert Nighthawk.

“My daddy bought me records like Albert Collins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Reed, Memphis Slim, John Lee Hooker. I’d play with blues guys, rockabilly guys. I watched a guy play ‘Memphis’ by Johnny Rivers, and I memorized where he put his fingers. A guy named Mr. Calcutt had played on the Grand Ole Opry, and he’d show me stuff. He took me to Bossier City, Louisiana; turned out we played a strip club. He said, ‘Don’t tell your parents.’ No way!”

As for primal guitarists, “I was a Creedence nut, so John Fogerty was an influence. Also, Lonnie Mack, Jimmy Reed and Eddie Taylor, and I wanted to be Roy Buchanan, but I realized that wasn’t gonna happen. He was so good.”

After moving to Hattiesburg, “I started a band with ‘Phareaux’ Gerry Felton, on bass, and R.S. Field asked me if I’d sing with the Howlers. Suzy Elkins and Phareaux, who was a good guitar player, and John McMurry (a.k.a. Webb Wilder) had my favorite band, Eveready. The original Howlers played a club called the Golden Eagle, doing Top 40. And people hated us. I finally said, ‘No more. I’m not singing “Angie” or “Daniel.”’ We learned ‘Going Up To The Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue’ by Taj Mahal.”

Austin seemed like a logical move.

“We were big fans of the Silvertones from Ann Arbor, and they turned us on to the Fabulous Thunderbirds. In ’76, we decided to move to Austin – a six-piece band getting $150 a gig.”

When the Howlers broke up in ’78, he kept the name, added ‘Omar,’ and paired the ensemble down to a trio. “Border Girl,” co-penned with Field, was a standout cut on I Told You So, from ’86. When Dykes wrote the title song of 1987’s Hard Times In The Land Of Plenty, he said, “I think I’ve got something.”

It secured a deal with Columbia Records. Big-time promotion went to work, but Columbia was being sold to Sony – “So they just ditched my record. The follow-up, Wall Of Pride, was released as a cutout.”

A 2020 memoir, The Life and Times of a Poor and Almost Famous Bluesman, is both cautionary and humorous. “The executives picked me up in limousines in every town, going to radio stations. Hell, I’d have ridden in a pickup truck. But I was paying for every one of those rides. In Boston, we had dinner with a bunch of promo people, and it came to 10,000 bucks. We were touring constantly. We didn’t have time to think about all that.”

Significantly, Buggin’ is on Omar’s own label, appropriately dubbed Big Guitar Music.

This article originally appeared in VG’s July 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.