About the Original “Live At the Austin Outhouse” Recordings“Someday, historians of Texas music will stumble across this tape and realize what Merle, Willie, Timbuk 3 and Blaze’s few hard-core fans already know – one of Texas’ most promising songwriters was tragically cut down long before his time.” - Lee Nichols, Daily Texan‘When you put the Live at the Austin Outhouse tape on, Blaze is all of sudden in the room.” - Townes Van Zandt
“A remarkable record.” - Calvin Russell
“As far as the “Live at the Austin Outhouse cassette is concerned, I was totally flattened. Foley’s talent was as bright and sharp as a new cut diamond.” - Kerrville Kronicle
About Blaze Foley“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.” - Casey Monahan, Austin American-Statesman
“One of Austin’s most remarkable singers/songwriters.” - John Conquest, 3rd Coast Music
“He 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 new it was right. He became Blaze Foley and he burned brightly, sometimes dangerously so.” - Larry Monroe, Austin Weekly
“He was an exceptional talent, not only as a writer but as a singer.” - Kimmie Rhodes
“And then there was the duct tape. Blaze liked to tape up his shoes and other things with duct tape. He’d have a sports jacket or something, and he’d have it very artistically covered with duct tape. Just everything was duct tape.” - Jubal Clark
“Blaze is remembered by Austin’s poets, pickers, pundits and police officers alike as one of the finest songwriters ever to howl at the moon.” - Michael Elwood
“Blaze was one of the most spiritual cats I’ve ever met; an ace finger picker; a writer who never shirks the truth; never fails to rhyme; and one of the flashiest wits I’ve ever had to put up with.” - Townes Van Zandt
"Blaze had an amazing ability to not only see the truth, but to sing about it. He was a thousand years old." - Gurf Morlix. (Gurf played with Blaze from l977-1981 in the Beaver Valley Boys.)
Songs about Blaze Foley
“Drunken Angel”“Some kind of savior singin’ the blues
A derelict in your duct tape shoes
Your orphan clothes and your long dark hair
Lookin’ like you didn’t care
Drunken angelBlood spilled out from the hole in your heart
Over the strings of your guitar
The worn down places in the wood
That once made you feel so good
Drunken angel”Excerpt from Lucinda Willams’ “Drunken Angel,” from “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”
“Blaze’s Blues”
“I gotta guitar all my own
I gotta quarter for the telephone
I ain’t headed down this highway all aloneHeaded down to Alabam
Cause some trouble if I can
Aw buddy would you like to come along
It’s a place I never been
And you know I could use a friend
They say they’ll give us twenty bucks a song”Excerpt from Townes Van Zandt’s “Blaze’s Blues,” from “No Deeper Blue”
“Foley”
“Last time I saw I seen my old pal Foley down in Austin town
He was looking good and he gave me $20 dollars and said we’ll be seeing you around
And all I remember from a phone call late at night was something about drinking
Somebody pulled a gun and they put out Foley’s lights, boys, they put out Foley’s lights”Excerpt from Richard Dobson’s “Foley,” from “Blue Collar Blues”