Blaze Foley (studio album) by Blaze Foley

The recording career of Blaze Foley is nothing short of tragic. Practically all the masters to his recordings were lost or stolen. All existing recordings are demos and poor cassette copies of the lost masters. Perhaps the only sonically acceptable recording is the Live at the Outhouse album.

The self-titled "Blaze Foley" was the only studio album to his name before his untimely death in 1989, and it was practically unavailable to anyone. According to the story, the albums were seized as part of a drug bust surrounding some of the people, but not before a few were stolen by the artist.

This album was not available on a mass scale until 2017, when the rights to the music (but not too the masters) were acquired and released digitally and on CD and LP. It was released under the title "The Lost Muscle Shoals Recordings." To this day, I believe the rights to the music in still in a legal battle, and the release was copied from a pristine copy of the original LP.

Muscle Shoals had quite a reputation at this time, so it was a big deal for Foley to record there. The production is fairly dated, but it's really nice (and super rare) to hear Foley supported with backing musicians instead of performing solo or with a skeleton crew. Foley, although limited by his natural singing voice, does fairly well on the sentimental songs, far better than on the "hokey" and bluesy songs. The production and supporting musicians make for a nice gift wrapped in sickly sweet paper.

Track Pick: Picture Cards
Gems: The Way You Smile, Where Are You Now My Love, My Reasons Why