Mr. Conrad joined Rockabilly Greg In the Flamingo Lounge on November 19, 2024 to talk about his music career. Below is an article written by Lucy Bell for the Sportsmen’s Americana Music Foundation’s Journal of Americana Music (JAM)
Guest Column: Ted Lambros aka Mr. Conrad
An interview by Lucy Bell (reproduced with permission for the author)
“I use to hang out with a record collector guy who was a friend of mine who actually turned me onto a lot of music. And at one point, I started wearing glasses. So he said to me one day, jokingly, ‘oh, you look like a Conrad,’ whatever that meant. So then he started calling me Conrad. And then later on…Eli [Hall] would introduce me to the crowd as Mr. Conrad.” “So that stuck.”
Sitting across from me with a hot cup of Spot coffee, Mr. Conrad looks like a greaser who could never let his look go. His silver hair slicked back into a thin duck’s ass with a black shirt and black rimmed glasses, the look suits him. And makes him instantly recognizable. For those who may have known Mr. Conrad over the years, they know him as the rockabilly man, the blues swinger, a hep cat, if you will. But why? His obsession since he was at the ripe age of 12 was blues, rockabilly and swing music that stayed with him until his age of 60. “It’s what grabbed ahold of me.” And it didn’t let go. Upon discovering musicians like Big Joe Turner, Bill Haley and Chuck Berry at such an early age, Conrad decided to not settle there, but go deeper; finding out who exactly were his hero’s heroes.
“I became an archeologist,” laughs Conrad. “I read an interview with Chuck Berry and he said he was very influenced by T. Bone Walker. Then I read an interview with B. B. King and he said he was influenced by T. Bone Walker. So I thought, ‘what the hell is T. Bone Walker?’ so I found out that. I was going backwards.” With the discovery of countless blues legends, Conrad was able to expand his obsession with the music and add new names to his collection of influences.
Although he was a huge fan of the music, Conrad knew he had to participate in the music after a show at the Kleinhan’s music hall in 1969, where he saw Jerry Lee Lewis as the headlining act. “I came out of there a completely different human being. I said, ‘that’s what I’m doing.’” He was 15 years old. After that night, Conrad focused on teaching himself the piano, playing Jerry Lee Lewis singles until the grooves wore down to nothing. “You’re hearing that big beat, with horns and piano. That swingin’ boogie woogie with the horn section…oh boy.”
By the age of 17, Conrad felt confident enough to play in high school bands and get experience performing in public but took a break from music for a few years. When he was 21, however, he started a band called The Cobras who specialized in surf and rockabilly music. Around that time, he had also met some musicians from the East Side. “Since I was always interested in the blues…I ended up on the East Side.” In 1977, Conrad started to devote his free time to jamming with the greats on the East Side. “It was kinda like blues college.” Conrad played with some of the best from the East Side: Eli Hall, Count Rabbit and King George, just to name a few. “I was going around to jam sessions and I really got a lot of welcoming from these guys.” Without feel, you have no blues. Through playing with the musicians of the East Side, Conrad learned something much more valuable than chord structure or music theory- he learned feel. “It’s something that you can’t consciously define. You have to absorb that by being there and learning. It wasn’t, ‘this is the note, these are the chords’, it was, ‘this is how it feels. This is the emotional content of what we’re doing.’ It’s like osmosis. I absorbed it by being there.” “I owe them a big debt of gratitude for letting me in.”
By the 1980s, Conrad started his own band that established themselves in the Buffalo scene. Mr. Conrad and The Excellos, named after a blues label that shared the same name that recorded many tracks The Excellos were playing, reached success in the Buffalo area, playing the blues and swing around town.
While the band as a whole was having fun, Conrad had other thoughts. “I was trying to get opportunities: go on the road, get a record deal, booking agent. None of that ever worked out.” Tied down with extended and permanent plans life had given them, the other members of The Excellos didn’t have the luxury of quitting Buffalo, making it difficult for these opportunities to be reached. “The guys in The Excellos all had jobs and families. They couldn’t leave. I could. I was free to do whatever I wanted.” While on a trip to Austin, Texas, Conrad had met famed bass guitarist Keith Ferguson, known for The Fabulous Thunderbirds, in 1990. They had quickly become friends and Ferguson became infatuated with Conrad’s playing. In turn, Ferguson invited Conrad to come to Austin any time to play.
When coming back to Buffalo, he told The Excellos what he wanted to do. “So I told them, ‘I got an opportunity to go down [to Austin] and play with [Keith Ferguson] and I’m gonna do it.’” In 1992, Conrad took the leap and traveled down to the Lone Star state to kick start his musical career. While there, Conrad gained musical success by playing with various bands and his own version of The Excellos he started in Austin. For personal reasons, Conrad came back to Buffalo in 1993, but soon was on the move again when settling in LA in 1998. Playing with White Boy James in The Blues Express every Wednesday and with 2,000 Pounds of Blues every Thursday, then playing every Friday happy hour with his own band, Conrad was finding a lot more action on the West Coast. “It was cool! There was a lot of work. I was playing 5-6 nights a week.” Conrad was working the scene by not only playing in bands, but being on call as a guitarist. He toured with bluesman James Harman right when he got to LA. “I went into the tour cold. I knew one guy when I got to LA.”
Conrad moved back to Buffalo in 2003 and just started getting back into music in the last few years, focusing primarily on playing piano. For fans of rockabilly or swing blues, this is absolutely the guy to see. Not only is he a fantastic musician, but an encyclopedia of blues, rockabilly and swing music. You can see Conrad at The Sportsmen’s Tavern, Hot Mama’s Canteen and The Mohawk Place’s happy hour.
Lucy Bell
JAM Journalist
Mr. Conrad was also highlighted in the JAM in the August 8, 2024 edition in an article entitled “Call Me Mister” by Elana Cala. You can read the article at sportsmensamf.org.