NewsBank, inc. Austin American Statesman - 1989 Article with Citation Blaze of glory Friends, musicians remember singer-songwriter Foley as `honest' but troubled man February 11, 1989 by Casey Monahan `Blaze Foley was a genius and a beautiful loser.'- Lucinda Williams Blaze Foley was really two people. There was the caring, loving altruist, and then there was the ornery, drinking poet. The former killed him, the latter always was killing him. Both were tempered by wit and humor, and both got him into trouble. His talent - songs - came from deep within him, so much so that it often was painful for him to sing them. His shooting death on Feb. 1 came during the rebirth of his career. He had recorded the Live At the Austin Outhouse cassette and nearly was finished with the overdubs at Bee Creek studio for a new album on Heartland Records. ``It was hard for us to record If I Could Only Fly,'' Bee Creek engineer Spencer Starnes said about Foley's most-remembered song, ``because every time he would sing it, about halfway through, he'd break down in tears. He wrote beautiful songs." While the works of visual artists have definable beginnings and ends, songwriters must continually repeat their creations, often re-experiencing emotions long-since passed. With the possible exception of Girl Scout Cookies, he never wrote a pop song. He was popular precisely because he tried to be so unpopular, so unruly. He often was written off by many who thought he was crazy. He was a champion of those he felt the closest to: the downtrodden and songwriters who maintained their integrity despite success, hard luck or chemical dependency. He loved Timbuk 3's Pat and Barbara McDonald because they handled "popular'' success with so much integrity. The Friday before his death, while he and I sat together at the Austin City Limits taping of Timbuk 3, he told me he thought Pat McDonald's songwriting peer was Bob Dylan. Foley knew. He'd listened to Dylan's songs for 25 years, loved his talent, and met him at Electric Ladyland on South Congress Avenue. Blaze had an ear for talent, and a belief that you should only speak about what you know - through your heart or your experience - is true. I don't think he ever wrote a song for any reason other than feeling. He thought Reagan and his supporters were jerks, so he wrote Oval Room. He thought people should forget everything every once in a while and get sweet, so he wrote Girl Scout Cookies. He thought flying was possibly the only way to rid himself of heartache, so he wrote If I Could Only Fly. People only fly in their dreams. Blaze was one of the few people who could translate the dream of self-sufficient flight into the reality of song. He's flying now. Blaze was booked at Austin's premiere folk venue, the Cactus Cafe, only twice this decade, which is a shame. Some people in the local music scene didn't have it in them to take him seriously, and he didn't make it easy for them if they tried. There was a time when he was barred from nearly every bar in Austin. He was a gentle outlaw, and he belonged in a venue that survives on funk alone: the Austin Outhouse. It was the only place in town that consistently booked him. On the surface, he was too unreliable, too weird, too drunk - or all three. I remember the reaction I got from a local booking agent and band manager when a photo of Foley appeared in the American-Statesman Nightlife listings. "Blaze Foley?" he said with disbelief. ``You ran a photo of Blaze Foley?'' -as if he'd written him off long ago and could not, or would not, try to understand his art. Even the police didn't take him seriously. Blaze's guitarist from '77 to '81, Gurf Morlix, remembers that ``one night we were coming back from a gig and we saw a fire. Blaze got on a pay phone and reported it to the police and they asked him who he was and when he said `Blaze Foley,' they hung up." His wit could make the most accepted practice seem absurd. He could reduce a given to something that takes away from the truth. Blaze had an uncanny ability to turn things around, to make you scratch your head and wonder how you could have looked at something an accepted way for so long. Police called Blaze's death an ``unfortunate homicide." Blaze would have laughed at that, then gotten mad as hell. To someone like Blaze, there was no such beast as a fortunate homicide. Larry Monroe, one of the few disc jockeys in America willing and able to play Blaze's music on the radio, will have a second tribute to Foley Sunday at 9 p.m. on KUT (90.5 FM). Some of Larry's guests scheduled to appear are Pat Mears, Mickey White, Pat and Barbara McDonald, H.T. "Tex Thomas" Young, Kimmie Rhodes, Joe Gracey, Michele Murphy, George Ensle, the Texana Dames, Calvin Russell, Rich Minus and Jubal Clark. On Feb. 26 from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m., a memorial concert at the Austin Outhouse will feature many of his friends and fellow songwriters. A $900 debt remains from his funeral. His Live at the Austin Outhouse cassette will be available, with $1 from each sale going to support the homeless. Some of the tape's receipts will pay for the cost of finishing the tape's packaging, and the remainder will go to his mother. A percentage of the door will be used to keep that still-struggling venue afloat. At Blaze's inspiring funeral, his friend Daryl Harris said, "I don't think there's a person here who hasn't been embarrassed by his honesty.'' And songwriter and close friend Pat Mears said later that "he could look right through you. If you were weren't an honest person, you couldn't handle his eyes. He had a personal relationship with everyone he met. Everyone felt that they knew him well. He had that ability to be personal with anyone. I felt like I could be exactly who I was with Blaze."