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In like a Blaze of Foley

As a music lover I am embarrassed to say that I just found out Blaze Foley ever existed. This morning as I was listening to a curated Apple playlist when I came accross the song "Drunken Angel" by Lucinda Williams. I am not a Lucinda Williams fan per-say, but I was stricken by the song. I just had to know who the song was about. "Drunken Angel" sounded too personal not to be about someone specific in the songwriters life. So down I jumped into the Google-Tubes and found that "Drunken Angel" was about a Singer/Songwriter named "Blaze Foley". Blaze Foley? Sounds like a 50's western. I can see it on the marquee in lights. "The Legend Of Blaze Foley". With a name like "Blaze" what would his horse be called? I remember thinking that whatever a "Blaze Foley" was it absolutely had to be terrible. Even if Lucinda Williams was effected enough to write about him.

The next course of action was straight to the magnifying glass of Apple Music. A quick search brought up the albums The Dawg Years, Sittin' by the Road, Wanted More Dead Than Alive and Live At The Austin Outhouse. Most of the albums were not of great quality as Blaze did not leave us with many options to hear his music.  Blaze did not live a long life, nor was he in the position to pay hefty recording fees. Therefore,  he recorded what he could when he could. The Dawg Years was recorded by a friend's wife at a kitchen table over a span of years. The songs he left however were a simple bunch of beautifully inspiring songs. He tooks the artists approach to music. Stay obsessed about your songs. Record what you can when you can. Record good quality when you can afford to. But mostly... stay obsessed.

I was listening to Clay Pigeons off of Sittin' by the Road when I first realized that John Prine had not written Clay Pigeons.  When Jonh Prine covers one of your songs, you've made it as a songwriter. I had always thought Clay Pigeons was a John Prine song. You learn something new every day. Or at least you should.

Today's musical discovery has taken the majority of my musical listening day to get through. Very happy to have found such simple, honest and most of all truthful music. It is very easy to get lost in whimsical when writing a song. As songwriters we often dip into fantasy to forget our day to day lives and in the process we leave the truth behind. Unless of course your name is Blaze Foley. Blaze was never afraid to tell the truth, and his shit is waaaay more John Blaze than yours.

Yetti Tracks (how I got here):
From Lucina William's "Drunken Angel" to Blaze Foley's "Clay Pigeons"






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