Guitarist Wild T continues to show his Spirit
Even his Hendrix covers include his interpretation
Today Tony Springer is one of the most respected veterans of Canada’s blues-rock guitar scene, nursing a passion for blues, reggae, jazz and rock that comes through in the original inventions of his power trio, known as Wild T & The Spirit.
But in a recent conversation, the frontman couldn’t help snickering over how he had to pay his dues early on, first back home in Trinidad, then again in Toronto, his home base since the mid-1970s.
Springer’s stroll down memory lane came just days ahead of a five-night stay at Blues On Whyte which runs through Sunday.
As a kid in Tunapuna, Trinidad, Springer grew up around a mix of Caribbean sounds, Trinidad’s calypso and steel drums, and Jamaican reggae. He started to write songs at age six. After joining a band at 14, he wrote his first hit the next year and got lucky with a house gig playing six nights a week.
But Springer soon became bored playing the mix of island dance grooves or “tourist’s music.”
“I was always a musical brat,” he admits. “Even later when I did the Jimi (Hendrix) thing I played my own solos. I was boo-ed off stage, or threatened with throwing rocks if I didn’t play calypso.”
He was more into Sly Stone, James Brown and an exotic cassette of the British art rock band Yes that featured the work of guitarist Steve Howe (courtesy of a Scottish cousin; yes, he’s part Scot).
To placate his father, Springer took a day job at an insurance company, trimming his hair to a business cut, still moonlighting in clubs around town. The week after his father died he quit the day job and hasn’t looked back.
Another quirk of Springer’s story — back then he found Jimi Hendrix overwhelming.
“That s--t scared me. I didn’t like it at all, but when I heard Steve Howe I was on a mission to make my guitar sound like cats in heat, going crazy. I wanted to explore more.”
He applied to enrol at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, twice, and the second time around he was invited to interview, just as he was earning a nice living arranging for a 90-piece steel band in Trinidad. Springer booked a threeweek vacation to Toronto, and before long he was jamming with friends in local clubs. He never did attend the conservatory but he did marry a Canadian woman.
By 1982, Springer won best guitarist at the Canadian Black Music Awards and an agent offered to set him up leading a band.
“At the time I had just cut my hair and was looking like a bank teller,” Springer says with a laugh. “He told me, ‘Grow your hair and learn two hours of Jimi Hendrix music, and I guarantee you five grand a week.’ I thought, I can’t pass that up, so I pulled out the Afro comb and started working a band called Fire. But after a couple of years I started feeling weak every time I put on those headbands. I couldn’t be somebody else. I had to be myself.”
He played for Carole Pope and her pop band Rough Trade for two years. Then in 1990, Wild T & The Spirit was born. The band’s debut album came out in 1991. Again, friends and managers pointed him to commercial opportunities, suggesting blues-rock was the key.
Along the way he was even coopted by David Bowie. The pop star saw Springer’s video for Midnight Blue on MuchMusic, then hired the guitarist for the studio sessions that became Black Tie White Noise (1993) and subsequent appearances on American television.
After nearly three decades of following his own instrumental identity, Springer is still his own man, given to a more instinctual mix of sounds with his trio (on tour is longtime bassist Guenther Kapelle and local drummer Trevor Bigam). He’s careful to underline that his vision of a power trio does not mean a noise band.
“To me, power trio means that the fewer people you have in a band, the more easily you can go places and find interaction.”
He has a handful of recordings, the last 2015 Live release long sold out. The band has toured Europe at least twice a year for the last 12 years and they ’re regulars in Canadian blues centres, especially here.
“Edmonton has accepted Wild T & The Spirit since we first came out here in the 1990s, they ’ve been great to me since the beginning.”
Springer long ago came to master songs from Hendrix and still includes Hendrix or James Brown covers in his sets, but it’s always with his own interpretation.
“Every time they see a black guy with a Stratocaster, people expect to hear Jimi,” he said, “but I always play it my own way.”
He writes his own originals “constantly” and says he has two albums of songs to record.
“A whole sea of never-ending ideas comes when I pick up a guitar. I feel like a little child learning a new word again for the first time. It’s like being an athlete. I don’t play the same way all the time. I’m ready to jump hurdles in a single bound. I play soul music, music from my soul, but really it’s blues-based, rockin’ blues, with a jazz flavour sometimes and always an experiment, to take you places.”
Wild T & The Spirit play Blues On Whyte through Sunday with a $6 cover Friday and Saturday.
BLUES HALL OF FAME
It’s the month of May and Edmonton’s Blues Hall of Fame is getting cranked up for its fifth induction ceremony, starting at 7 p.m. May 27 at Blues On Whyte.
The show will feature Big Dave McLean with Jimmy and the Sleepers. McLean will take his place in the Hall of Fame in the “legend” category, with Willie McCaulder is inducted into the “performer” category and the late, great multifaceted music promoter Kirby in the “builder” category.
Tickets are $20 in advance from Tix On The Square, Blackbyrd Myoozik or the Commercial Hotel reception desk, $25 at the door. See edmontonblueshalloffame.com for details.