How Phil Wright Became St. Louis' Go-To Harmonica Player

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NICHOLE OLEA

Phil Wright learned from St. Louis’ harmonica greats.

He is Phil "the Thrill" Wright. The Wright Stuff. The man guitar hero Sean Canan calls the "St. Louis Phil-Harmonica." Phil Wright is the man who can go in and out all night long.

We're talking, of course, about blowing the harmonica, and Wright is St. Louis' current go-to blues-harp baron, the sultan of sixteen holes.

He's also the man behind Phillipalooza, the annual concerts held in honor of his late father, Phillip Wright, who died from Lou Gehrig's disease in 2006. This year's two-night event will take place December 1 and 2 at Old Rock House with proceeds supporting the ALS Association.

Despite Wright's status as a first-call harmonicist, the 50-year-old was a late-blooming blower: He was well into his 20s before he owned his first harmonica, a fluke $10 purchase at a Cracker Barrel while on vacation. Before that, he was sitting in with area Dead-centric bands as a percussionist, a hobby he had taken up at as a student Hannibal-LaGrange College in Hannibal, Missouri, on a baseball scholarship back in the mid-'90s.

Wright can trace his love of classic blues-based rock back to the Memphis area, where he was born and raised just across the Arkansas state line. His parents, both teachers, lost two infants to muscular defects, which led to their decision to adopt Phil (renamed after his adoptive father) when the boy was three. His parents opened up the world of music to him with piano lessons, visits to Graceland and his dad's record collection. "My dad's midlife crisis wasn't a Ferrari. It was a jukebox," Phil says. "It was an old-school Wurlitzer with 45s of the Band, the Allman Brothers. He set a stack of quarters on the shuffleboard table next to the jukebox."

All that early blues-rock training came into play when Wright held that first cheap harmonica in 2004. Shortly after, the band he was playing percussion for, the Lightning Bottle Band, broke into "Sweet Home Chicago" at Soulard's 1860 Saloon in the right key for Wright's C harp. Within two weeks, Wright was playing harp on a full set of the band's songs. "It was a lot of trial and error," Wright says. "I remember the first time I bent a note. It was kind of an accident. I was, like, 'Whoa, that was cool. I didn't know I could do that!"

He also sought advice from some of the harmonica greats around town, including Howard Young and Eric McSpadden. "The first time I saw [McSpadden], I was 19 years old at the Big Muddy Blues Fest on the Landing," Wright remembers. "I just stopped in my tracks and was, like, 'Holy hell!'" Those legends gave him pointers, and Wright started adding better harps and gear to his arsenal. "Pretty soon, I started using pedals and found my own way of doing it," he says.

And he has never stopped. Wright has played in dozens of bands and combos over the years, including swamp-funk favorites the Scandeleros, the Dead tribute Alligator Wine and duet shows with Americana mainstay Cree Rider. Sean Canan fans know Wright as one of the original Voodoo Players who has been in numerous incarnations over the last decade, honking on the harp during tributes to the Dead, the Allman Brothers, Willie Nelson, the Stones and several others. Notably, Wright performs the roles of John Belushi's Elwood in the Voodoo Blue Brothers party and Ronnie Hawkins in the annual Voodoo recreation of The Last Waltz, coming up on November 25 at the Pageant.

All told, Wright has played an average of two to three nights a week for years ("Broadway Oyster Bar is home away from home," he says), which is especially amazing considering that for all that time, he has been a full-time English teacher at Hazelwood West High School. How does a guy regularly play beer-soaked bar gigs into the wee hours on school nights and get up and teach the next day? "I've never needed a ton of sleep," he jokes. "It wasn't that difficult until I got older and closer to retirement." Impressively, Wright was able to reach full retirement from public school teaching last year just before hitting his 50th birthday. Still, old habits die hard. "Sometimes I still wake up after gigs at 8 o'clock and panic that I've overslept for teaching," he says.

Around Christmas of 2005, Wright's father was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, which Wright says had been "hanging over my father his whole life." That's because Wright's father's father, grandfather, brother and sister all died from the disease.

"His dad was bed-ridden for much of his life," Wright says. "His brother was in bed for three years, his sister for two years. My dad was very active. He said, 'I never want to be in a wheelchair. I never want to be bedridden. If this is what I have, I want it to be quick.'" It was. Diagnosed in January, the elder Phil Wright was gone by the end of May 2006. He was 58.

If the younger Wright had not been adopted, ALS would be a cloud over his head as well. Instead, he is driven to help others suffering from the disease. The first Phillipalooza concert to raise money for ALS was held at Lucas School House in 2006 featuring a lineup of local bands. The next year it moved to Old Rock House, where it has been held annually in December ever since. Eventually, in 2013, so many bands were asking to play Phillipallooza, the event expanded to two nights and has now been a tradition 17 years running.

This year's lineup is perhaps the festival's most impressive yet, featuring One Way Traffic, the Scanderleros, Brother Francis & the Soultones, Grooveliner and Colt Ball & Friends on Friday, December 1; the Funky Butt Brass Band, Sean Canan's Voodoo Players (playing Jimmy Buffett), Alligator Wine, Madahoochi, Emily Wallace and Moon Valley on Saturday, December 2.

The shows will be hosted by Wright's 22-year-old son, Jack, who was four years old when his grandfather died. "He remembers going to get hot dogs with him," Wright says. "They spent a lot of time together." And what better way to keep remembering him than to bring the best of St. Louis' musical treasures together for two nights to raise voices, money and spirits? And maybe to play a few songs from that old jukebox, complete with harmonica.