"Shareef and Dylan agree, sometimes when things get a little nutty you just gotta toss on the cowboy hat and sing some country songs...[His] songs draw their power from the raw emotional honesty in his lyrics and his singing - he lays it all out up there and it's a beautiful thing...if people still say 'keeping it real', that's what Shareef does."
- J.J. Schultz, host of the Hotel Utah open mic, San Francisco, CA
Shareef Ali is a songwriter, composer and performer living in Oakland, California. The warm twang of a '72 Telecaster or the comforting pluck of an Alvarez steel-string acoustic serve as a backdrop to poignant and revealing lyrics reminiscent of Leonard Cohen or Conor Oberst. A delicate trust is forged between artist and audience, "a feeling that he's building fragile, intricate worlds inside a wind tunnel, fully aware that they may be caught in a gust at any moment," Britnelle Bell writes. Shareef's verse is set over elegant chord progressions, classical in craft and variation: though familiar forms recur in the terrain, the journey ends in quite a different place than the one in which it began.
Shareef Ali's parents traveled from opposite corners of the globe to raise their two children in the American Midwest, landing in St. Louis, Missouri. Shareef began performing his original songs at sixteen before attending Oberlin College, where studied Music Composition with Randy Coleman, Lewis Nielson and Richard Hoffman. "Amor Combate", Shareef's setting of Pablo Neruda's "Oda y germinaciones", was featured at the 2004 Midwest Composers' Symposium held at the University of Michigan.
Shareef Ali moved to the Bay Area in 2007 and the next year recorded a five-song solo acoustic demo, Music From And Inspired By Our Doomed Love Affair. Since then, he has performed at such venues as the Rockit Room, House Of Shields, Grant & Green, Socha Café and Bazaar Café in San Francisco and Nomad Café in Oakland; he has also appeared as the Featured Act at the Hotel Utah open mic in San Francisco and Starry Plough open mic in Berkeley. Shareef is sometimes accompanied by The Radical Folksonomy, featuring fellow Oberlin grads Guy Brown on guitar; jazz pianist Erika Oba; and singer Sarah Thompson.
Recent show history
2010
- Saturday, January 30 at Studio 1510 / East Nile (with Adam Balbo, Graham Patzner, Wolf Larsen and Mr. Andrew)
- Tuesday, January 19 at Grant & Green (opening for Augustus and Antonette Goroch)
- Sunday, January 17 at Bazaar Café (with Cortnee Rose)
- Saturday, January 9 at Socha Café (opening for Mr. Andrew, Jeff St. John, and the Sioux City Kid & The Revolutionary Ramblers)
- Thursday, January 7 at Kaleidoscope Free Speech Zone (opening for The Beehavers and Mother MacKenzie)
- Monday, January 4 at the Hotel Utah (Featured Act for the Monday night open mic)
2009
- Saturday, December 26 at the Mead Hall, St. Louis, MO
- Saturday, December 5 at House Of Shields, San Francisco (opening for The Beehavers)
- Wednesday, November 11 at the Rockit Room, San Francisco (introducing The Radical Folksonomy; with The Tenderloins, S.A. Bach and Scotch and Bones)
- Sunday, November 1 at Nomad Café, Oakland
- Monday, October 19 at Socha Café, San Francisco (with Erica Dreisbach)
- Saturday, October 10 at Bazaar Café, San Francisco (with S.A. Bach)
- Tuesday, September 8 at the Starry Plough, Berkeley (Featured Act at the Tuesday night open mic)
- Friday, August 28 at Nomad Café, Oakland
- Saturday, August 22 at Mo'Joe Café, Berkeley
- Sunday, May 31 at the Bazaar Café, San Francisco, CA (with The Chastities)
- Friday, April 17 at the Bazaar Café, San Francisco (with Wamanda)
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Contact Shareef Ali, Songwriter at shareef@shareefali.com.
Want to book a show?
Shareef Ali and the Radical Folksonomy are available to play at your venue, café, coffee shop, gallery or warehouse; we are also able to perform at events such as festivals, house parties or house concerts, as well as benefits and fundraisers. E-mail shareef@shareefali.com.
Like to hear about upcoming shows, new recordings and the like?
Join the email list (totally private):
Emails are only sent once every few weeks; every effort is made to be informative, clever, interesting or otherwise amusing. For up-to-the-minute coverage, follow Shareef Ali on Twitter, friend him on MySpace or become a fan on Facebook.
Interested in making music together?
Shareef Ali and the Radical Folksonomy would love to share a bill with you. We are also looking for additional musicians for our ensemble, especially string players, bass (upright, electric or both), and percussion. Email shareef@shareefali.com.
Want to hear more music?
Shareef Ali and the Radical Folksonomy will be recording demos with the entire band in the next few months. In the meantime, be sure to check out Shareef Ali's YouTube channel and TheUtah.org for performances of songs that haven't been done in the studio yet. If that's not enough, you can always email shareef@shareefali.com and ask for the combination to the vault.
Love what Shareef Ali does, and wish to support it?
While Shareef is adamant that everyone is welcome to enjoy his work regardless of ability to pay for it, donations are certainly accepted and deeply appreciated. Shareef Ali is a working musician and any support, no matter the amount, helps him to keep creating and sharing his work with the world.
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