Spencer Thomas Band

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WINNERS of the 2009 Heart O' Texas Blues Challenge, The Spencer Thomas Band represented Austin at the 26th International Blues Challenge this January (2010) in Memphis.

A Blues Singer and Songwriter in a guitar town, Thomas drags his Texas Blues Band deep into soul and swamp pop territory.
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The Spencer Thomas Band released "Live From The Saxon Pub" on V-8 Records in January 2010. The CD features 8 live tracks recorded at the famed South Austin venue.
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Spencer's first solo album, "Voodoo Dream" was named to the 'Texas Top Ten' in The Austin Chronicle's 2007 Critic Picks.

Long time music guru at The Chronicle, Margaret Moser wrote that he "does his stuff with the kind of Texas panache that should be getting raves from peers and press."
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Spencer was named "Best White Soul Shouter" by Third Coast Music Magazine following a 2007 SXSW showcase .
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Spencer's voice was featured on Pat Boyack & The Prowlers "Super, Blue, and Funky" (Bullseye Blues/ Rounder Records - 1997). Together, they played top blues venues across the country, such as
- BB King's (Memphis & LA),
- Buddy Guy's Legends(Chicago),
- House of Blues (Boston & Orlando)
- Slippery Noodle (Indianapolis)
- Stevie Ray's (Louisville)
- Grand Emporium (Kansas City)
- Mother's (San Luis Obispo)
- Blue Cafe (Long Beach)
- Memphis in May Fest 1998
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Spencer's first band, The Solid Senders (w Keith Ferguson on bass), released two CD's on Holland's Tramp Records and toured Norway and The Netherlands in 1994 - 1995.
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In the late 1990's, Thomas and his band, The Big Pow Wow, hosted a popular weekly blues jam and welcomed a generation of new musicians to the Austin scene.
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Spencer maintained his own band The Spencer Thomas Band intermittently between these other groups, and has performed continuously on the Texas scene since 1998.
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PERSONAL HISTORY –
Spencer was born in 1956 in the hill country north of San Antonio, and grew up tuned in to the popular hits on AM radio and local jukeboxes. A good student and athlete in school - and otherwise a fairly regular seventies kid - his passion for music was really ignited when he stumbled in to the musical counter-culture springing up around his Central Texas home, most notably in Luckenbach and in Willie Nelson’s rise to Outlaw notoriety.

From San Antonio to Lubbock, to New Mexico and back again, Spencer left a trail of odd jobs as tire changer, cedar chopper, land surveyor, oilfield worker, bicycle mechanic, bartender, and . . . student of English Literature. In 1980, he landed in Austin with a Bachelor of Arts from UTSA and dreams of making it as a singer/songwriter/rockstar.

Having first picked up the guitar at college in Lubbock, Spencer later fell in with a group of casual pickers in the New Mexico oil town of Hobbs. He and his cronies learned songs by John Prine, Neil Young, and the like.

A loner in Austin, Spencer began putting his lyrics to music and haunting the local open mic circuit, where his vocal talent was appreciated and encouraged. However, while his guitar was his best friend in writing songs, he soon learned it distracted him while performing, and he decided to specialize. He started looking for a band that wanted a singer.

Meanwhile, Austin’s ever evolving scene had moved away from the cosmic cowboys’, and in turn had embraced punk, new wave, reggae, and world music.

Spencer finally found his voice in the post T-birds / Stevie Ray blues revival of the mid-eighties. At the age of thirty, Spencer joined his first band, and became vocalist for The Solid Senders. Hector Watt was the band’s founder and guitarist, and he is responsible for introducing Spencer to the blues.

The Solid Senders became a mainstay of Austin's live music scene for a decade, eventually boasting Keith Ferguson on bass. The Senders gained an international reputation after cutting two albums for the Dutch label, Tramp Records.

Spencer's national debut was in 1997, with Dallas guitar slinger, Pat Boyack. After singing eight songs on Pat's third release, "Super Blue and Funky" (Bull's Eye Blues - Rounder), Spencer performed with Boyack’s band at major blues venues and festivals across the country.

After Bull’s Eye Blues opted out of a fourth record for Boyack, Spencer resumed playing with his band, keeping to the regional Texas scene. He has also worked with an ensemble group known as Reverend Ben T. and The Well Kept Secrets, and enjoys performing intermittently with other veterans of the Austin scene such as showman extraordinaire, Larry Lange, Bobby