Tony Springer

Last updated
Tony Springer
BornTrinidad and Tobago
OriginCanada
Genres Blues-rock
InstrumentsGuitarist
LabelsGuitar
Associated acts Wild T and the Spirit

Tony "Wild T" Springer is a Trinidadian/Canadian blues-rock guitarist.

Trinidad and Tobago Island country in the Caribbean Sea

Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is a twin island country that is the southernmost nation of the West Indies in the Caribbean. It is situated 130 kilometres south of Grenada off the northern edge of the South American mainland, 11 kilometres off the coast of northeastern Venezuela. It shares maritime boundaries with Barbados to the northeast, Grenada to the northwest, Guyana to the southeast, and Venezuela to the south and west.

Canadians citizens of Canada

Canadians are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Canadian.

Guitar fretted string instrument

The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that usually has six strings. It is typically played with both hands by strumming or plucking the strings with either a guitar pick or the finger(s)/fingernails of one hand, while simultaneously fretting with the fingers of the other hand. The sound of the vibrating strings is projected either acoustically, by means of the hollow chamber of the guitar, or through an electrical amplifier and a speaker.

Contents

Early life

Springer was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago; [1] he played with a number of reggae and calypso bands as a teenager.

Reggae music genre from Jamaica

Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s.The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use the word "reggae," effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, especially the New Orleans R&B practiced by Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political comment. Reggae spread into a commercialized jazz field, being known first as ‘Rudie Blues’, then ‘Ska’, later ‘Blue Beat’, and ‘Rock Steady’. It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat, and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.

Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to mid-19th century and eventually spread to the rest of the Caribbean Antilles and Venezuela by the mid-20th century. Its rhythms can be traced back to West African Kaiso and the arrival of French planters and their slaves from the French Antilles in the 18th century.

Career

Springer later moved to Canada, settling in Toronto and playing local clubs in a Jimi Hendrix tribute band. [2] He joined Rough Trade in 1986 as the band was becoming less active; [2] they broke up in 1988.

Toronto Provincial capital city in Ontario, Canada

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada's most populous CMA. Toronto is the anchor of an urban agglomeration, known as the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A global city, Toronto is a centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.

Jimi Hendrix American guitarist, singer and songwriter

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music".

Rough Trade was a Canadian new wave rock band in the 1970s and 1980s, centred on singer Carole Pope and multi-instrumentalist Kevan Staples. The band was noted for their provocative lyrics and stage antics; singer Pope often performed in bondage attire, and their 1981 hit "High School Confidential" was one of the first explicitly lesbian-themed Top 40 hits in the world.

In 1990 Springer took on the stage name Wild T, and launched his own band, Wild T and the Spirit. In 1992 Wild T was nominated for a Juno award as most promising male vocalist. [3] Springer also appeared as a guest musician on David Bowie's 1993 album Black Tie White Noise .

Wild T & the Spirit is a Canadian blues rock band, fronted by guitarist Tony Springer.

David Bowie British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million albums worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

<i>Black Tie White Noise</i> 1993 studio album by David Bowie

Black Tie White Noise is the 18th studio album by David Bowie. Released in 1993, it was his first solo release in the 1990s and his first solo album in nearly six years, after spending time with his hard rock band Tin Machine, retiring his old hits on his Sound+Vision Tour, and marrying supermodel Iman. This album was an attempt to make "a new kind of melodic form of house" music and featured his old guitarist from the Ziggy Stardust era, Mick Ronson, who died of cancer 24 days after the album's release. This album was inspired by his own wedding and includes tracks such as "The Wedding" and its reprise at the end of the album as a song reflecting the occasion.

Wild T & the Spirit had several lineups over the years, and released a number of albums, [4] [5] including Givin' Blood, which was nominated for a Juno Award in 1994. [6] [7] The band toured in Europe, Canada and the United States, [8] and continues to perform and record as of 2017. [9]

The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame are also inducted as part of the awards ceremonies.

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References

  1. ↑ " Wild T & the Spirit" AllMusic Biography by John Bush
  2. 1 2 "One slow-cookin' Trade show". The Globe and Mail , January 31, 1986.
  3. ↑ "Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year 1992". Juno Awards website.
  4. ↑ "Wild T and the Spirit - New and Notable Releases". NOW Toronto, by Brent Raynor May 20, 2004
  5. ↑ "INTERVIEW: FEB.27th, 2017 TONEY SPRINGER (WILD T)", The Wire, May 29, 2017 Deb Draper
  6. ↑ "I Am Ashamed". The Nerve Magazine - May 2005 page 10.
  7. ↑ "Best Hard Rock Album 1994". Juno Awards website.
  8. ↑ "Wild T & The Spirit to Tour Europe". Blues WebZine, 3 April 2009
  9. ↑ "First Halifax guitar fest rocks Cunard Centre". Chronicle Herald, Photos by ADRIEN VECZAN April 27, 2015
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