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Sharriff boogies at home after 55 years
MARSHALL, Texas, (UPI) -- Boogie-woogie piano legend Omar Sharriff visited his Texas hometown for the first time since 1955 to celebrate its labeling as the music's birthplace.
Sharriff, 72, who was known by birth name David Alexander Elam when he left Marshall at the age of 17, said San Antonio psychiatrist and part-time historian John Tennison contacted him at his Sacramento, Calif., home and explained Sharriff's father, who also played boogie in the area, may have learned from the local originators of the style, which dates back to the 1870s, The Dallas Morning News reported Friday.
Tennison also took his research to Marshall city leaders last year and the City Council passed a resolution certifying the city as the birthplace of boogie-woogie. The city convention and visitors bureau agreed to bankroll a concert for Sharriff.
Sharriff played to a capacity audience of 450 at Marshall's Visual Arts Center June 11, which the city proclaimed Omar Sharriff Day.
The musician said the city has changed a lot since he left in 1955 after seeing a group of white men beating up a black man while white police officers stood by and watched.
"I couldn't believe it," Sharriff said of coming back to Marshall. "It's like one of them movies, like a space-time continuum. It's weird, man. Feels like I'm being transported back through time. Feels like being abducted by alien spaceships, or somebody put me in a time machine."
MARSHALL, Texas, (UPI) -- Boogie-woogie piano legend Omar Sharriff visited his Texas hometown for the first time since 1955 to celebrate its labeling as the music's birthplace.
Sharriff, 72, who was known by birth name David Alexander Elam when he left Marshall at the age of 17, said San Antonio psychiatrist and part-time historian John Tennison contacted him at his Sacramento, Calif., home and explained Sharriff's father, who also played boogie in the area, may have learned from the local originators of the style, which dates back to the 1870s, The Dallas Morning News reported Friday.
Tennison also took his research to Marshall city leaders last year and the City Council passed a resolution certifying the city as the birthplace of boogie-woogie. The city convention and visitors bureau agreed to bankroll a concert for Sharriff.
Sharriff played to a capacity audience of 450 at Marshall's Visual Arts Center June 11, which the city proclaimed Omar Sharriff Day.
The musician said the city has changed a lot since he left in 1955 after seeing a group of white men beating up a black man while white police officers stood by and watched.
"I couldn't believe it," Sharriff said of coming back to Marshall. "It's like one of them movies, like a space-time continuum. It's weird, man. Feels like I'm being transported back through time. Feels like being abducted by alien spaceships, or somebody put me in a time machine."
