The Talent of Conrad Oberg

The Universal Wisdom. Who write this lines, sometimos imagine it like a stream of an invisible water that moves over our heads. It moves endlessly while the world goes on and each one of us continue with our own current lives, under it presence, without realize of it, almost without knowdlege about its existence.

Only few people, with an extraordinary sensitivity seems to get up over the crowd and touch this sacred river where the present, past and future melt, the Alfa and the Omega, where all the secrets of the universe go on without end. We call to this fortunate people, genious or talents.

Shakespeare, Mozart, Picasso, Einseinstein, are some onames of the this chose people who have illuminated the world, from time to time, with the magic that they got after touching this stream. But there are others, anonymous or in development who appears nowadays, to amaze us with their awesome abilities.

Who writes this, came across with one of them, unexpectedly, while looking for some info in the famous video page Youtube. His name is Conrad Oberg, he is 13 years old and lives in the US. He is a real virtuous, and not only because of his ability with the guitar, his fast manners with his fingers in the piano and the scenic self control of a man who knows what to do; but because, when the spectator is before him, immediately catch what the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca called “the elf”; it means, that thing that trap the spectator at this moment, making him feel exactly what the performer wants to transmit through his art.

And Oberg does it perfectly.

Conrad was born with some disadventages. With a very low weight (six month only in pregnancy), one eye blind and the other one barely in function. But, more than a impediment, all this was like a fuel to develop his extraordinary talent in music: at age of 3 he learned by himself, to play the piano and, at 10 to play the guitar by ear. Nowadays he is 13 and is an expert in this instruments; he has played –even is friend- with some of the masters of the blues like Pinetop Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Guy, among others.

His musical knowlegment in this musical genre is impressionant: Ray Charles, Edgar Winter, Reese Wymans, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Ray Vaughan, T-Bone Walker, Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters,John Hammond Jr., Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Billy Gibbons, Rory Gallagher, Eric Johnson, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Steve Morse, are some of the artists he likes to listen to.

Some little time will pass to see Conrad in the fame – palace with the living legends who wrote new chapters in the history of the music. But in the meantime, he has two albums issued: Decade and A Dirthy Dozen (one of them recorded in the Studio and with the band members of Jerry Lee Lewis). A third one ad portas: Juke Joint 2007. He also is appreciated by the great blues men, the critics. And, last but not least, Conrad has a big future in front of him, that will give him more experience and wisdom.

Now, I invite you, dear readers, to watch some Conrad Oberg videos, for you to let trap by his magic as I did when I met him.


Conrad Oberg - Hey Joe

Conrad Oberg - Steve Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood


Related Links:

Official web page

Interview with Conrad Oberg (EU Jacksonville)