Fact: Tommy Conwell is Awesome

Me:    Why is Tommy Conwell so awesome? 
You:   Because he's a great musician and performer?... 
Me: 
You: 
Me:    That was an existential question. 

Originally posted on Audio Rumble's Facebook page.

Conwell Is A Jock Who Really Rocks (Billboard - 2005)

Conwell Is A Jock Who Really Rocks
by Phyllis Stark

Billboard Magazine | July 2, 2005

Tommy Conwell used to be a rock star. Now, he plays them on the radio. The one-time leader of rock band Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers--who recorded two albums for Columbia Records--has been the midday personality on active rock WYSP Philadelphia since 2003. 

But in the 1980s and early '90s, Conwell was a local guitar hero and one of Philly's most promising native sons. 

Conwell, now 43, began playing music professionally at age 20, when he was a student at the University of Delaware. In 1984, he formed Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers, who quickly built a following playing at Philly-area clubs and campuses. Locals lined up around the block to see the blond, spiky-haired rock god and his band perform their high-energy, sweat-drenched sets. 

Such was the band's popularity that when a contest was held in 1987 for a free concert at a local high school, area teens sent in more than 11 million postcards. After a label bidding war, Conwell and his band signed with Columbia and released their major-label debut, "Rumble," in 1988. That album was followed by "Guitar Trouble" in 1990. 

In those heady years, the group got radio airplay and MTV exposure and appeared on the American Music Awards and on talk shows hosted by David Letterman and Arsenio Hall. But "Guitar Trouble" marked the band's swan song, and the beginning of the end of Conwell's music career. In 1993 he formed a new band, a punk rock/blues outfit called the Little Kings, who released two albums, including 1997's "Sho' Gone Crazy," on a tiny, independent label. 

By then, Conwell saw the writing on the wall, as both his career and his hair started to disappear. He went back to school, received his degree and became an elementary-school teacher. "I always said, 'When I'm not sitting at the table in the music industry anymore, I'm not going to hang around begging for crumbs,' " he says of the career change. He taught at an elementary school for five years before deciding that teaching was "entirely too much work for my lifestyle." 

He then began selling fencing for a friend's company. In 1999, Conwell was still employed outside the music business when Infinity's WYSP tapped him to host its Sunday-evening local-music show, "Loud and Local." "With him being a former rock star in Philly, it was a natural fit," WYSP VP of programming Tim Sabean says. 

Four years later, the station ran a contest to find its new midday jock. Conwell auditioned and was chosen by the audience to fill that role. Sabean says Conwell's local connection is part of his appeal. "He talks about Philly and can relate to Philly." As an added bonus, Sabean says, Conwell is "recognized on the street from his rock-star days." 

One advantage Conwell's past has given him is that he is totally comfortable at the many public appearances he does for the station. "I know what to do with a microphone in front of a live crowd," he says, noting that standing before an audience is hard for some jocks but has been his "bread and butter for a lot of years." 

Conwell continues to host the hourlong weekend program "Loud & Local," a part of his job he especially enjoys because he has complete creative control of the show. 

As a former Philly musician, his main goal for "Loud & Local" is to give exposure to bands for whom that kind of airplay means so much. "I try to make them all feel like rock stars, because I know how good that feels." 

He also knows what the flip side feels like--when radio gives an artist the cold shoulder. During his major-label days, Conwell and his band visited hundreds of radio stations while on tour, and with each visit, he says, "you never knew what you were going to get. You might get treated like the Rolling Stones or you might get treated like a nuisance." 

So when musicians visit his station, Conwell's rule is simple: "You need to be sweet to them." 

Having tasted life in the major leagues, Conwell has no regrets about the twists and turns. "I've been lucky my whole life--from having the good fortune I had to make records on Columbia and tour the world, then that goes away and this [career] pops up. I'm on the No. 1 rock station in Philadelphia--the station I grew up listening to." 

Asked what is appealing to him about his radio career, Conwell, who still performs sporadically cites a new kind of creativity and notes that "the hours are great." But mostly, he confesses, "I like being famous." 

In fact, Conwell admits that making the transition from rock star to third-grade teacher was extremely difficult. 

"When I went into teaching, it was time to get over myself," he says. "There was a lot of ego deflation that needed to occur, but it was great for me. Some of the best lessons I learned were in that time period." 

That experience made him appreciate his newfound notoriety much more. "When it's taken away and then given back, that's when it's really the sweetest." 

David Uosikkinnen's In the Pocket - Walkin' On the Water

Song 13 - Walkin' On the Water 

In the Pocket's 13th song is “Walkin’ On The Water," originally recorded by Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers in 1986. Available on iTunes and Amazon.com! Dedicated to the memory of Tom Owston.

http://songsinthepocket.org/songs/walkin-on-the-water


"I could have chosen any number of Tommy Conwell’s great songs. But, I chose ‘Walkin' On The Water' because it seemed autobiographical and all about how Tommy was truly feeling at that time. Cocky, confident, on top of the world, and it rocks like crazy!"
- David Uosikkinen

Elton John's Philadelphia Freedom - Various Philadelphia Artists

Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" - Various Philadelphia Artists (1989) [Long Version]

Artists included on this recording: The Hooters, Patti Labelle, Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers, Grover Washington, Jr., Pretty Poison, Phyllis Hyman, Teddy Pendergrass, Robert Hazard, Jeff Lorber, Jean Carn, Britny Fox, Bobby Rydell, Schoolly D, Essra Mohawk, Sister Sledge, Billy Paul, Dee Dee Sharp and Tony Santoro.

Singing Our Song Local Superstars Get It Together 

By Jonathan Takiff, Daily News Staff Writer 
June 5, 1989 

          Did Elton John's rendering of "Philadelphia Freedom" make you well up with civic pride? If so, you're gonna bust over a dynamic new Philly superstar treatment out on a just-issued album called "Philadelphia Freedom - Together." 
          Trading licks (in the style of "We Are the World") are Teddy Pendergrass, the Hooters, Schooly D, Grover Washington Jr. and Patti LaBelle. Sharp ears also will detect the presence of Sister Sledge, Britny Fox, Jeane Carne, Bobby Rydell and Billy Paul, Pretty Poison, Dee Dee Sharp, Jeff Lorber, Robert Hazard, Essra Mohawk, Tony Santoro and Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers. 
          Celebrating Philly's rich and varied base in contemporary music, the Nick Martinelli and Randy Cantor production of Elton John's fight song was a year in the compiling, done at the behest of the Philadelphia Music Foundation. The results are coherent and soulful - an easy addition to the playlists of WIOQ, Power 99, WUSL or WDAS, or even (because it's instant gold) WOGL and WPGR. The boosters at PMF hope radio will get behind the song tomorrow in a big way. They're trying to get every radio station in the Delaware Valley to play the tune - to help the cause, in a City Hall ceremony at 3 p.m. today, Mayor Goode is to declare tomorrow "PMF's Philadelphia Freedom Day." 
          Still, don't be surprised if rockers WMMR and WYSP instead opt to plug some of the classic tracks that flesh out the $7.98 "Philadelphia Freedom" album. Yup, it's the greatest hits by the Hooters ("And We Danced"), Patti LaBelle ("New Attitude"), Cinderella ("Nobody's Fool"), John Eddie ("Jungle Boy") and Robert Hazard ("Escalator of Life") on the rocking Side 1. The flip side gets funky with McFadden and Whitehead's "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now," George Thorogood's "Who Do You Love," Teddy Pendergrass' "Close the Door," Sister Sledge's "We Are Family," Jean Carne's "Closer Than Close" and Michael Sembello's "Automatic Man." 
           PMF board member Alan Rubens (the savvy talent agent/manager and sometime record company proprietor) negotiated the song rights for the PMF project, and Sigma Sound's Joe Tarsia (now PMF chairman) mixed the package. "It's a clear example of people helping people through music," says Tarsia of the superstar song and album project. "The monies raised will be used to further the education and careers of young people through our scholarship fund." Over the past 2 1/2 years, PMF has contributed "in excess of $60,000" in music-field related scholarships, adds PMF director Loretta Barrett.
        Also keeping it local, Warner Bros. has pressed the album at its Olyphant, Pa., plant. And the Narberth-based Collectibles label - which specializes in classic rhythm and blues compilations and reissues - is putting the album and an upcoming tape version into national circulation. 
          While best spread in Delaware Valley music stores, naturally, ''Philadelphia Freedom - Together" has also been shipped to distributors in Boston, New York and Los Angeles and will be "filtering out from there," says Collectables' president Jerry Greene.

Tommy Conwell and the Little Kings - Prime Time Pub in NE Philly

Thanks to Joe Kohnow for sharing with Audio Rumble - 

"Here are a few photos of Tommy jammin' on 'Johnny B. Goode' with my old band, Oscar Can't Win, when we opened up for him and the Little Kings at the Prime Time Pub in NE Philly." 
[Sept. 1996]