Blaze Foley – his songs won’t die
There are a lot of folks in the music business who hit it big and you know the names, Kris, Robert Earl, Willie, Waylon. And with a lot of the bigger names, you don’t even have to say the last name to know who I’m talking about.
One of the lesser known names…..and we’re talking way down the list here, is Blaze Foley. I was turned on to Blaze Foley by an internet friend who goes by the name of Treehugger.
It would be really accurate to say that Blaze Foley is gone, but not forgotten. But how many Blaze Foleys have there been, really? How many have hung in there, singing their songs, writing fantastic lyrics, only to be cut short in their careers and have their names recede back into obscurity? How many guys and gals have picked up their guitars and written fantastic songs that have never been recorded, then gone on with their lives? That would surely have been Blaze Foley’s legacy were it not for a group of dedicated fans who recognized his gift and simply will not let it pass.
I had to really listen to his songs a couple of times before I ‘got’ it. His music is not for everyone. But I’m a lyrics guy and really listen to what the singers have to say in their songs.
Blaze was essentially homeless and he slept under pool tables and lived off the kindness of his friends and acquaintances. He was possibly a Don Quixote character charging windmills in Austin who was a mixture of wild, mean, drunk, compassionate, crazy, lonely, homeless, and a defender of the less fortunate among us. He was shot dead defending an older man whose son had been stealing his social security check and using it to drink and do drugs.
Blaze Foley was a hard case. But he did have a songwriting talent and a certain group of folks just won’t let his memory or his songs….die.
Some pretty big names recorded Blaze Foley written songs. Here is Merle singing one of them. There were many others.
Lucinda Williams wrote this song to remember Blaze Foley…Drunken Angel
And here is Blaze Foley singing “If I Could Only Fly” in someone’s backyard….
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In Music Video IX, you wrote, “That’s just a little too much for one post, so there will be four this week and four next week. Hope you appreciate Bobby Bare.”
What happened to Bobby Bare? Nudged aside by Blaze?