Lost Art Records

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Blaze of Glory
Blaze Foley murdered
Sticking with Blaze
Blaze Tale
Blaze Foley Review by Jim Caligiuri

Blaze Foley's last recorded performance - and the only Blaze recording in print-is now available on compact disc. Recorded on December 27 & 28, 1988 at Blaze's "home dub," Live at the Austin Outhouse captures Blaze at his honest best just four weeks before his murder. Originally recorded by Blaze friend and fellow musician Lost John Gasner on 4-track cassette equipment, the tapes have been digitally remastered and repackaged for distribution beyond the Austin underground market for the first time.

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Blaze Foley CD Released

Storied Austin Songwriter Left Legacy of Exceptional Songs

(Austin, Texas) Blaze Foley has long been celebrated by the Austin music community as a master songwriter. With the release of "Blaze Foley - Live at the Austin Outhouse," his songs are now available for the first time nationally. The release comes ten years after his death at age 39.

Originally issued as a cassette in 1989, "Live at the Austin Outhouse" captures some of the best of Foley's songs. It includes "If I Could Only Fly," which Merle Haggard called "The best country song I've heard in 15 years." Haggard and Willie Nelson recorded the song in 1987, and Haggard still includes it in his performances.

"Our hope in releasing the Outhouse CD is that Blaze and his songs will be exposed to a wider audience, so he can achieve the recognition he rightfiilly deserves as one of Texas' finest songwriters," said John Casner, Foley's friend and partner in the Outhouse recording project.

At the time of his death, Foley (whose real name was Michael David Fuller) was little known outside of Austin's renegade songwriter circles. But recent events have sparked widespread interest in the Foley songbook. In 1999, two tribute CDs of Foley songs were released, with a third tribute in the works. Further, Lucinda Williams' "Drunken Angel," and Townes Van Zandt's "Blaze's Blues," personal tributes to Foley, are adding to a legacy that was once nearly forgotten.

Born in Arkansas in 1949, Foley grew up in West Texas, performing at an early age in a family gospel act called the Fuller Family. He led a colorft~l and storied life. Even in Austin, a city of non-conformists, Foley stood out. He slept on friends' couches or on the pool tables in clubs. Periodically banned (if only temporarily) by many Austin clubs, he made the Austin Outhouse his surrogate home.

Above all, Foley is remembered for the stark honesty of his songs. They tapped emotions so deep, they sometimes reduced his lumbering frame to tears while performing. From aching love songs to provocative political commentary, Foley's songs reflected his uncompromising artistic vision.

Intensely devoted to his craft, Foley never held a "day" job. He wrote hundreds of songs and made several recordings. Unfortunately, most of the master tapes have been lost or stolen. One master is even reported to be in the hands of the FBI, or the DEA, depending on who is telling the story.

Always an advocate for the underdog, Foley pledged a portion of the profits from the original cassette release to an Austin homeless shelter. Circumstances prevailed, however, and proceeds went instead to defray his burial costs. In keeping with Foley's wishes, 20 percent of the profits from this release will go to the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, in his name.

Playing a borrowed guitar for these sessions, Foley is supported by some of Austin's finest musicians. Initially a four-track recording, the tape has been digitally remixed and edited, to flilly capture the intimacy of those December nights in 1988.

Four weeks after making these recordings while trying to protect an elderly man he had befriended Foley was shot and killed.

Lost Art Records is dedicated to promoting the work ofdistinctive, independent Texas artists.
Founded in 1999, Lost Art Records, first release is "Blaze Foley - Live at the Austin
Outhouse."

Guns can change things quickly. drastically, and tragically.

The Duct Tape Messiah died in a single blaze of rifle fire on February 1, 1989. He was 39.

My first memories of Blaze Foley date back to emmajoc's. He was decked out in duct tape and Mercuro chrome. He was asleep under the pool table. A game of 8-ball was in progress on the green felt above him. Every umc sonteone made a hall and it dropped with a thud, Blaze would rouse up, smack his forehead on the bottom of the table, and sprawl back out. Several championships were decided over his head as he slum bered on.

The week "Pancho and Lefty," sung by Willie and Merle, hit No. I, Townes Van Zindi, who wrote it, checked into the State Hospital on Tuesday. On Saturday. he checked himself out to play his end of the month rent gig at emmajee's. Sober and deter- mined, but strained and weak, Townes struggled through his set that night.

During "If I Needed You," he forgot the lyrics and faltered. Blaze glided gracefully to his side and sang the words for him, then harmonized with him as Townes got back on track. After the song, Blaze quietly sat back down near the stage. Townes grew stronger from that point and it almost seemed that a direct energy transfer from Blaze had occurred.

My opinion of Blaze had been vaguely negative until that night. That single gesture caused me to change my mind. I realized he had character. He had dis played courage, caring, and perfect timing. From that moment on, I took him more seriously. I began to listen to his music. And I got to know him.

At my house one night, I asked Blaze if he might be related to an old friend of mine, Mike Foley, who resembled him somewhat. He said no, he had changed his name for show business purposes. He'd wanted a colorful, memorable name. He liked Red Foley's name and considered becoming Blue Foley. Or Blues Foley. He kept working with the name and got Blaze Foley and knew it was right. He became Blaze Foley and he burned brightly, sometimes dangerously so.

That night he told me that he was totally committed to his career as a songwriter and would never have a day job because that might dull his ambition or detour him from his artistic goals. He was uncompromising on that point and I never knew him to hold down a job just so he could pay rent. Blaze preferred the sofa Circuit and he rotated among friends and lovers for sleeping quarters. He didn't even have a car to sleep in, in a pinch. And he didn't care.

Blaze knew Newt Gingrich before Newt took his hard right turn and got elected to Congress. Newt liked to hear
Blaze sing, and he called him "My own Bob Dylan."

The afternoon of June 26, 1986 I got inside information that Dylan was shopping at Electric Ladyland. My daugh. terSaraandlhoppedin thecar and drove there. Sure enough Dylan was in the store select ing masks, headgear, jackets, and other articles from the stock of costumes and fancy clothing and piling them on the counter. I tried to think of how to tell him that I'd been playing his records on the radio for 25 years without spooking him and making him think I was a jerk, but Sara kept asking me to come look at stuff and that opportunity slipped away.

Blaze came in the store and went into the room with Dylan. A few minutes later Blaze came in the store again. He said, "Bob Dylan is outside talking to Townes. Come on, I'll introduce you to him." By the time we got out in front of the store the drifter had escaped and Townes was sitting in the car with Pussycat and Indian Gary. They had all been on a binge and none of them was seeing too straight.

Blaze told me he had walked up to Dylan, introduced himself and said Townes was out front. Dylan had wanted
to meet Townes, and they had immedi ately gone outside. Blaze had seen me on the way Out and had come back in to get me after he introduced Dylan to Townes.

Blaze talked Townes and Linda Shaw out of enough money to go back into Electric Ladyland to buy a Ronald Reagan mask. He carried that mask around for months, sometimes sneaking a few beers out ofthebarin itafter hours.

Blaze pulled a beer Out of Ronald Reagan's head and popped the top on the way out the door. We bad been talking and listening to music at my house since the clubs had closed three hours before. I was giving him a ride to a friend's place a dozen blocks away. His friend got up at 5:30 a.m. and went to work at six. Blaze was going to sleep in his bed while he was at work.

It was a hot Austin summer night. Blaze set his Corona on the roofof my carso he could open the door and stow his stuff in the back seat. When he reached for the beer, he knocked it over and it rolled down the slope of the roof. emptying itself along the way. The bottle bounced on the street and didn't break. We laughed about it and headed for Blaze's borrowed bed.

After I dropped him off I drove to the car wash and washed the beer off the car. I knew the blazing Texas sun would bake the beer into the finish and damage the paint if I didn't.  Running with Blaze was always an adventure, and having to wash my car at dawn didn't faze me in the least.

Blaze was a good judge of talent and, early on, gave me copies of Pat MacDonald's pre-Timbuk3 albums. The last time I saw Blaze he was sitting in with Timbuk3 at The Hole In The Wall.

If you cover the Austin music heat you often see musicians called up from the audience for a short guest set, usually two songs, sometime more. I had noticed that when BIaic got called up he'd do one of his own compositions, sometimes "Oval Room," other times "If I Could Only' Fly," and he would also do Mississippi Fred MacDow elI's "You 'Got To Move." One time I asked Blaze why he always sang "You Got To Move" instead of singing two of his own songs so people could hear what he wrote. I ean't recall his exact answer - it was years ago - but he reminded me of my question, in public, the last night that I saw him.

Billing themselves as Fred and Wilma to avoid an over-large crowd, Timbuk3 played at The Hole In The Wall on January 25 with Blaze opening. Daring the last set, Pat and Barbara K. called him to the stage, saying: "Blaze Foley was our first friend in Austin. He was on the street, we were on the street.."

Blaze strapped on his guitar, thanking Juhal Clark for the loan of it. He looked over at me and smiled that smile that crinkled his face, and with that twinkle in his eye he said into the microphone: "This is a Mississippi Fred MacDowell song. Larry Monroe wonders why I always sing this song..~and I'm glad he does."

Then Blaze and the folks who called him their first friend in Austin sang:

One week later, Blaze was dead and I understood why he always sang "You Got To Move."

After services in an overflowing chapel, several of us got lost on our way to the cemetery. Blaze smiled. With a few songs to send him off and some shared tears among his friends, the gathering at graveside broke out the duct tape and decorated his coffin. Blaze laughed out loud.