The young Tommy Conwell, a roots-rockin’, bluesy, soulful singer-songwriter-guitarist and bandleader, spent most of his formative years trying to learn to play guitar like his local idol, legendary Philly-area jazz guitarist Pat Martino.
Martino never achieved the kind of widespread success in the jazz world that someone like Pat Methany has, but he enjoyed a good measure of success in his recording career and with jazz festivals around the U.S. from his home base in Philadelphia. After suffering a debilitating stroke, he regained use of his hands and taught himself jazz guitar all over again. Martino, who played several Exit Zero Jazz Festivals in his later years, died at 77 in 2021.
In grade school, Conwell’s grandmother lent him a ukelele, and he began learning basic chords on that instrument. That’s not a bad instrument for kids to learn prior to learning guitar, as witnessed by the careers of East Texas blues-rock brothers Johnny and Edgar Winter, both of whom learned ukelele in grade school.
Conwell received his first guitar after he took piano lessons for a year or so, along with his older brothers. When he told his mother, who also played piano, he didn’t want to continue with piano lessons, she asked him what instrument he did want to learn. He said he really wanted to play drums.
His mother, a housewife, didn’t like that idea, but a cousin intervened and gave him a guitar when he was 12. Conwell’s father worked in the insurance industry.
Asked about his upcoming solo shows and reflecting on his career as a regional force in roots-rock, blues and anthem-like rock ’n’ roll covers since he was in his early 30’s, Conwell, said he enjoys doing solo shows at venues like Starving Artist Café in Stockton and Tod Ellis’ legendary brother’s record store and performance space, Randy Now’s Man Cave in Hightstown.
“I like doing solo shows in places where people are there to listen,” Conwell explained recently from his home in Philadelphia.
Conwell actually has four modes for performing: solo; his well-known, ground breaking roots rock band, the Young Rumblers; a southern Jersey Shore bar band, the Dirty Pints, who do almost exclusively sing-along rock ‘n’ roll covers; and a large band with a three-piece horn section called Tommy Conwell and The House Rockers.
He has shows coming up with all three bands this spring and summer.
“I especially like doing solo shows in a venue where the crowd is attentive like the shows I’m doing for the Ellis brothers,” he said.
Conwell said his earliest awareness of blues and roots rock ’n’ roll music came about in junior high school. Back then, in the late 1970’s, Philadelphia was a great music town, and in many respects, still is.
After all, the city was host decades ago for Dick Clark’s famous “American Bandstand” TV show. And a half dozen good public, college and commercial radio stations have always supported local artists there. In fact, southern New Jersey became a hub for record distributors in the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, thanks to the success of Dick Clark’s popular TV program.
Once he had begun trying to master the guitar in earnest, he found plenty of accessible jazz venues and clubs.
“I really loved Pat Martino going back to high school, and I liked George Benson a lot. There was a lot of jazz music in Philly, and I remember I saw Dexter Gordon, there were theater shows all the time. Grover Washington, Jr. And there was a little club at the Holiday Inn in Cherry Hill called ‘The Little Pit Lounge,’” he recalled.
His parents wanted him to attend college like his older brothers. Blaise went into the Air Force and then corporate America, he said, and Joseph, the middle son, played pro football for the Eagles in the mid-1980’s “when they were kind of transitioning from [QB] Ron Jaworski to [QB] Randall Cunningham.”
He completed two years at the University of Delaware in Newark, because the blues-rock bug bit him hard in his freshman year when he heard incredible musicians like George Thorogood and the Austin-based Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble.
“College was the first place I got to see the Fabulous Thunderbirds which totally spun my head around. They were white guys playing blues. It totally spun my head around in terms of what was possible; I realized these were all virtuoso musicians playing really, really accessible music! And George Thorogood was from Newark, so he would pop up a lot in clubs. I joined this band called Rocket 88, and I left college to perform with them,” he recalled.
“I had some good people right there in Delaware. And Delaware is where I started the Young Rumblers, and we got it going very quickly. Very quickly we were offered the chance to open up for The Hooters at the 23 East Club in Philadelphia, and that started the ball rolling.”
Based on the crowds he was drawing to clubs like 23 East and other large venues around Philadelphia and Delaware, and on the strength of their independently released debut album, “Walkin’ On The Water,” Conwell and his bandmates were signed to record for Columbia Records in 1987. They released their major label debut “Rumble,” in 1988.
They followed up with a second album for Columbia “Guitar Trouble.” A third album was recorded, but the label chose not to release it. This kind of thing happened with far too much frequency in those days, as witnessed a short time later by bands like the Spin Doctors, who have Princeton roots with lead singer Chris Barron. The band was dropped by Epic Records after two promising albums that sold well, but ultimately not well enough for the bean counters at Epic/ Columbia Records.
Conwell’s Young Rumblers began as a three-piece band, and over the years has evolved into a quartet. At the Stone Pony in Asbury Park on April 24 — a venue his band has played more than 30 times over the years — Conwell will be accompanied by bassist Paul Slivka; drummer Jim Hannum; keyboardist Rob Miller and a second guitarist, Chris Day. During a typical Young Rumblers show, Conwell alternates between playing venom-tipped guitar solos and rhythm guitar and vocals.
Asked about his approach to songwriting — after all that’s what he needed to get signed to Columbia Records in the first place — Conwell was humble about it.
“I tend to write songs when I have a reason to. We made an album in 2019 called ‘Showboats and Grandstanders’ and I wrote songs for that. I’ve got some new songs now but I’m not a prolific song writer. I started writing songs after I got signed because you needed them. Somebody had to do it! Over the years, I’ve written some good songs. I kind of get lucky once in a while and have a decent song.”
After marrying his second wife Megan, a hair stylist, and having two young kids to raise — now 16 and 17 — he took a break from performing so many shows when they were young. He feels blessed that not too many people or venue owners forgot about his legendary live shows.
“When they were little, it wasn’t really the right thing for me to be doing, to be playing out a lot, to be out late every Friday and Saturday night for months on end.”
He kept his name out there by playing a handful of shows each year while helping to raise his two young kids, he said, “but now that the kids are older it’s become possible for me to play more regularly. I took a hiatus for family reasons, but whenever I wanted to play, I’ve always been able to play, and that’s been a blessing, there’s always been somewhere for me to play.”
A discussion of what the audience can expect at his upcoming solo shows at Starving Artist Café’ and Randy Now’s Man Cave took us full circle back to his original guitar hero, Martino.
Conwell said he looks forward to telling some stories to more attentive audiences in both venues and maybe even answering some questions or taking requests. After all, he’s only been doing this professionally for more than four decades, since leaving college in 1982.
“Pat Martino was my hero in high school,” he explained and it was Martino and the band progressive rock band Yes that fueled his interest in jazz in high school.
“Really, Pat’s been my hero my whole life. I always dreamed of playing like Pat Martino, and I still do!”
“I love both of these venues so much. These are different kind of solo shows, they’re not bars. I’m pretty good at playing bars of course, but you’re often kind of playing in the background and you end up having to play songs that everyone knows, it’s a little tougher,” he argued.
“Whereas, at Starving Artist or Randy Now’s Man Cave, people are buying tickets, and that makes a difference. They sit down and look at you, it’s more like a theater concert. They are listening to everything you do and you can do more of your originals or obscure stuff that they don’t know, and they’re cool with it.”
“When I play solo shows in venues like this, my goal is to get it going and keep it going so I’m pretty much like bang, bang, boom from song to song to song,” he explained.
“I’m not like a James Taylor, I bash the hell out of my guitar,” Conwell said, “because by this point, at 64 years old, I know myself and what works pretty well.”
And what would Pat Martino say if he saw Tommy Conwell banging the hell out of his guitar? “He would say, ‘Who is this moron! I’m over that!’”
Upcoming Tommy Conwell shows: Friday, April 17, Starving Artist Café, Stockton. 6 p.m. Bridge Street, Stockton. 609-483-2219.
Saturday, April 18 (Record Store Day). Randy Now’s Man Cave, 119 West Ward Street, Hightstown. 609-424-3766.
Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers, Friday, April 24, Stone Pony, 913 Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park. 7 p.m. 732-502-0600.
Inside Randy Now's Man Cave's new location in Hightstown.,
