This site is dedicated to the memory of one of the greatest singer-songwriters to ever come out of Texas, Blaze Foley, who passed away over fifteen years ago.
"Sticking with Blaze Foley" by John Kelso
It was midafternoon Friday, and the woman on the phone sounded
one part bemused, one part frantic and one part high.
She said she and some of Blaze Foley's other friends were
thinking about stealing the late musician out of the funeral home so
they could cart him up to the Austin Outhouse to attend his own
benefit that evening.
A cash flow problem was at the root of the plot, she said.
The funeral home wanted $1,600 more, she said, adding that
Blaze's musical associates who were helping foot the bill for his
burial had invested about all the money they could come up with at
that particular moment.
And now, she said, they were talking about making off with Blaze.
Lord knows what might become of Blaze if they didn't come up with the
money to bury him, she said.
So duct-taping Blaze to the Austin Outhouse door for his own
benefit, so to speak, seemed like a plan.
It never happened. After John Barrymore died, some of his
friends took him along and propped him up in a chair while they got
drunk. But Blaze Foley's friends didn't pull it off.
One suspects Blaze, the songwriter who was shot to death early
Feb. 1 [1989] after an argument, would have been disappointed if he'd known
he'd been left behind. He had some outlaw in him. He also was a
generous soul, said Jubal Clark, one of Blaze's best friends.
"He had a big heart, and he loved to sing,'' said Jubal, a
long-haired picker who knew Blaze pretty well and who spent a lot of
time "talking eyeball to eyeball'' with him.
Blaze, Jubal recalled, liked to hand out little presents to
people. The occasion didn't have to be Christmas, either.
"He'd say, 'Hey, Jubal, can I borrow the keys to your car?' "
recalled Jubal, who kicked in on a couple of quarts of beer and a
pack of cigarettes early one morning shortly before Blaze died, after
the two of them had pooled all of the nickels and dimes they had.
"I'd say, 'It's raining. Where you got to go?' And he'd say, 'I got
to go over to a variety store.' I'd drive him up there and he'd say,
'I'll be back in 10 minutes.' He'd be back about 45 minutes later.
He'd buy all these toys or any kind of little thing, and he loved to
give 'em away. That was his thing - toys to give to people.''
Jubal says it was his idea to take Blaze to the Outhouse and tape
him to the door for that farewell bash.
"I said, 'Now be real careful you don't leave any kind of musical
instrument close to him, `cause he might break that duct tape loose,' ''
Jubal recalled telling his fellow schemers.
They say Blaze Foley had some quirks. Duct tape and BFI trash
bins come to mind. When you'd pass one of those BFI trash bins on
the street, Blaze would ask if you knew what BFI stood for. And when
you asked him what, he'd joke and say, "Blaze Foley inside." That's
why someone taped the initials BFI on Blaze's coffin at the Saturday
funeral.
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 artisically covered with duct tape,"
Jubal remembered. "Just everything was duct tape."
Everything wasn't money, however, for Blaze Foley. He was
another of the Austin musicians who became fairly well-known on the
one hand and fairly well-busted flat on the other.
Jubal says Blaze spent much of his life on the couch circuit,
even though Willie and Merle Haggard had recorded "If I Could Only
Fly," one of his songs. Jubal recalls the time he was talking to two
young ladies about Blaze. They told Jubal about how Blaze would come
by and sleep on their porch, or under it, some evenings.
"I said, 'Hey, ladies, I'll tell you one thing about Blaze,' ''
Jubal remembered. " 'Since Willie and Merle did that song of his,
with all those royalty checks coming in, I'll bet the next time he
shows up on your porch, or under it, he'll have his own pillow.
That's what success'll mean to him."
