* You’ve probably never heard of Blaze Foley. A singer-songwriter who died in 1989, Foley was mostly forgotten, although he was barely known to begin with.

Foley lived hard. He didn’t care about what others thought of his life, his appearance, his choices. He alienated many of his friends with his rough and tumble ways, rarely had a home of his own, drank all the time and got in too many fights with friend and foe alike…

My first memories of Blaze Foley date back to emmajoe’s. He was decked out in duct tape and mercurochrome. He was asleep under the pool table. A game of 8-ball was in progress on the green felt above him. Every time someone made a ball 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 slumbered on.

Through the haze of alcohol and drugs, and the perils of brawls and homelessness Blaze did his best to remain dedicated to his art…

[H]e 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.

* Merle Haggard covered one of Foley’s greatest works, “If I Could Only Fly.” back in 2000, eleven years after Foley’s death. Haggard, a country music god, said the song was “the best country song I’ve heard in 15 years.”

You can listen to Foley’s original version by clicking the RealPlayer button below…

Wrecks Bell hosted Foley on his couch many times over the years and also covered the song. It’s a thing of pure beauty…

If I could only fly
If I could only fly
I’d bid this place goodbye
To come and be with you
But I can hardly stand
Got nowhere to run
Another sinkin’ sun
One more lonely night

* John Prine covered another Foley tune, “Clay Pigeons”…

Prine began researching Foley, and in the process, received a bootleg tape from a friend in Austin, Texas. Foley sang a scruffy version of “If I Could Only Fly,” followed by “Clay Pigeons.” “When I heard ‘Clay Pigeons,’ I thought, ‘Man, that sounds like me,’ ” Prine said. “I couldn’t get the song out of my head. And when I can’t get a song out of my head, I have to learn it.”

Listen below…

[audio:claypigeons.mp3]

I’m tired of running ’round looking for answers to questions that I already know
I could build me a castle of memories just to have somewhere to go
Count the days and the nights that it takes to get back in the saddle again
Feed the pigeons some clay
Turn the night into day
Start talking again when I know what to say

* Foley was shot and killed in 1989 while trying to help a friend fend off an attack. Years later, Lucinda Williams, a country goddess who knew Foley from her Austin days, wrote a song about Foley’s life and death called “Drunken Angel”…

Followers would cling to you
Hang around just to meet you
Some threw roses at your feet
And watch you pass out in the street
Drunken Angel
Feed you and pay off all your debts
Kiss your brow, taste your sweat
Write about your soul your guts
Criticize you and wish you luck
Drunken Angel

* Foley was a running buddy of the legendary Townes Van Zandt. Townes also wrote a song about Foley after his death called Blaze’s Blues. Here are the two friends singing one of my favorite Townes songs, “Snowing on Raton”…

* As with most folk/country songwriters, Foley was also political. He had no love for Ronald Reagan and wrote a stinging song about the president back in the mid-1980s called “Oval Room”…

At the factory, never been so slow
Got a big fourth down, ninety nine to go
And down on the farm, nothing growing there
But the debts they owe and their gray hair
In the desert sand, and the jungle deep
He thinks everything is his to keep
He’s a real cowboy, with his makeup on
Talks to kings and queens on the telephone
He’s the president, but I don’t care

* But he wrote some great, sad country songs about lost love and lost lives. Here’s one called Faded Loves….

Faded loves, and memories
How they take the best of me
This old chain around my shoulder’s
only makin’ me look older
Than I am — I’ll get over you someday

* Foley’s mother was a gospel singer and Blaze played in her band. Here’s a gospel number he wrote called “Let Me Ride in Your Big Cadillac”…

Let me ride in your big Cadillac, Lord Jesus
Let me ride in your big Cadillac
I can see the pearly gates
Where the angels wait
Standin’ all around your big Cadillac
Won’t you take me by the hand
Lead me to the promised land
And let me ride in your big Cadillac

His voice had its moments, but his real value was as a songwriter.

* So, why did they call him the Duct Tape Messiah?

In reaction to the Urban Cowboy craze sweeping across the city, he mocked the make-believe cowboys with their shiny silver boot tips by putting duct tape on the tips of his boots […]

He loved duct tape, the miracle binder that kept his clothes and his life together. Foley slapped the adhesive to shoes, jeans, shirts, hats, jackets. Once he made a whole suit out of duct tape. Friends dubbed him the Duct Tape Messiah.

He was even buried in a coffin covered in duct tape.

* Interest has surged in Blaze’s music in the past few years. Lyle Lovett covered another Foley tune in 2003, “Election Day.” And Foley’s family has released three new CDs.

A documentary is in the works about Blaze’s life, called, fittingly, The Duct Tape Messiah…

* 100 percent of the profits from the movie will be donated to a project for the homeless. Foley was a champion of the homeless. This is what Townes Van Zandt had to say about Foley’s cause…

“He was a friend of the homeless, poor, elder, a real super caring guy. And he would sometimes seem bitter, you know. The only reason for that is he was brimming over with so much genuine love and caring. To see an injustice sometimes it would just put him over to a frenzy, kind of. He couldn’t stand to see a poor bag lady on the street. It threw him into a rage, almost. It just came from love.”

* Here’s one last Foley tune, this one covered by Gurf Morlix. Cold, Cold World…

I can’t get no job and I can’t get no rest
I started out east, but I ended up west
And I’m so glad to be here I’m sure, I would guess
Ain’t it a cold, cold world