Gurf Morlix – Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet Dream [Rootball Records]

“He’s only gone crazy once. Decided to stay.” – Townes Van Zandt about Blaze Foley

For Gurf Morlix to create a tribute album for his Austin running buddy and fellow singer-songwriter, the late, great Blaze Foley, was a tricky endevour. Foley wrote songs with such singular originality edging toward cloying sentimentality and corny humor and instead delivering songs of heart-wrenching honesty and dry wit. Once hear Foley do a Foley song you can’t really imagine anyone else doing it.

Not that it hasn’t been tried before. Foley’s songs have been covered by John Prine (Clay Pigeons) and Merle Haggard (If I Could Only Fly.) And Foley has inspired others as as the subject of Austin contemporaries Townes Van Zandt’s “Blaze’s Blues” and Lucinda Williams’ “Drunken Angel.”

Foley’s legacy is ready-made for mythology. He used to jokingly claim to be the illegitimate son of Red Foley and Blaze Starr, to be a news broadcaster from Cincinnati and to have once tried to break into Caspar Weinberger’s house to “see what was on his VCR.” These whoppers are like a seeping breach between a rich source of song-craft inspiration and a need to recreate himself.

In truth Blaze Foley. Born in Marfa Texas (setting for the films Giant and There Will Be Blood and currently a thriving creative community) in l949. He performed in a family gospel act called the Fuller Family with his mother and sisters. He eventually landed in Austin, a city that prides itself on non-conformity, and with his duct-taped boots and clothing, sense of humor and stark, brutally honest songs, stood out.

Gurf Morlix is an Americana music pioneer. A New york native in1981 he moved to Los Angeles where he met a kindred spirit Lucinda Williams. He went on to lead her band for 11 years (1985 to 1996) singing, and playing guitar, and eventually producing her albums. His latter role as producer of Williams’ pinnacle Car Wheels On A Gravel Road led to their acrimonious split. Morlix then went on to play either guitar, bass, mandolin, dobro, pedal steel guitar, lap steel, banjo, piano, harmonica, and a variety of other instruments for and/or produce a literal who’s-who in the the Americana/rock field – Warren Zevon, Mary Gauthier, Robert Earl Keen, Slaid Cleaves, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Buddy and Julie Miller, Tom Russell, Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, Michelle Shocked, Jimmy LaFave, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Mojo Nixon, Jim Lauderdale, Jerry Lee Lewis, Peter Case, Bob Neuwirth, Don Walser, Jon Langford, Steve Earle, Harry Dean Stanton, Charlie Sexton, The Plimsouls, Victoria Williams, James McMurtry, Flaco Jimenez, Rosanne Cash, David Byrne, Kevin Welch, John Prine, Dave Alvin and many more. Impressed yet?

Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet Dream is 15 Foley originals that display the dark-to-light shadings of the man’s talent. Displaying a sense of humor and song-craft Roger Miller would envy on the cuts Baby Can I Crawl Back To You, Big Cheeseburgers and Good French Fries and No Goodwill Stores in Waikiki and the unvarnished melancholy and longing of If I Could Only Fly (featuring renowned Texas singer/songwriter Kimmie Rhodes on backing vocals) and Cold, Cold World that would make his buddy Townes Van Zandt weep. Some of the songs – Oh Darlin’ and Rainbows and Ridges combine elements of both.

Morlix ‘s arrangements and delivery are straightforward and top notch playing adds just the right amount of adornment. Aside from the excellent musicianship Morlix, unlike Steve Earle’s 2009 tribute to his mentor Townes Van Zandt, appears to have no urge to put his personal stamp on the songs.

Morlix was there on that cold February day in Austin when they put Blaze Foley in the ground as a result of being on the business end of a 22-caliber rifle. He was not content to let his songs be buried with him.

This CD is released in conjunction with the documentary film, Blaze Foley: Duct Tape Messiah, which has been 12 years in the making.

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First Annual Ray Wylie Hubbard Grit-N-Groove Festival

Ray Wylie Hubbard has always done things his own way. So after years of being asked to steward a festival he always put it off. Until now…

Hubbard has invited his favorite artists to play the First Annual Ray Wylie Hubbard Grit-N-Groove Festival to be held on Saturday April 4th in Luckenbach Texas (where else?!) From the poster design to the seating layout he has been involved in every aspect to ensure his festival has the grit and groove we have all come to expect and love about him. The vibe will be acoustic throughout the day with The Band of Heathens and Ray and his band closing the evening with full rockin’ band sets.

The concert will be held in the dance hall with seating on a first come first serve basis.

Neal McCoy, Linda Davis and Michael Martin Murphey are 2009 Texas Country Music Hall of Fame Inductees

  • Billboard.com posts on the South-By-Southwest tribute to Texas music legend Doug Sahm which featured performances by Jimmie Vaughan, the Gourds, Dave Alvin and Sarah Borges & the Broken Singles, Los Lobos, Delbert McClinton, Charlie Sexton, Little Willie G, Terry Allen and a collaboration between Joe “King” Carrasco and the Texas Tornados.
  • Two native East Texans are among three country music artists destined for the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. Jacksonville native-turned-Longview resident Neal McCoy will join Panola County native Linda Davis and western singer-songwriter Michael Martin Murphey as 2009 inductees into the hall of fame. The hall of fame show is scheduled for 7 p.m. Aug. 15 at the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame facility, 300 W. Panola St. in Carthage.
  • From Country Standard Time:  Willie Nelson has postponed six tour dates due to illness, according to his web site. The illness was not specified.  Postponed dates were March 17 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.; March 18 in Melbourne, Fla., March 19 in Panama City, Fla., March 20 in Choctaw, Miss., March 21 in Marksville, La. and March 22 in Springdale, Ark.
  • Famed moonshiner Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton died at the age of 61 at the his Parrotsville, Tennessee home. He allegedly committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide in an old Ford Fairlane he kept in a barn on his property  a few days before serving an 18-month sentence in Federal Prison for illegally brewing spirits and possessing a firearm as a felon. Read Johnny Knoxville’s fitting post here.

Yallwire Hank III Contest

  • Yallwire, Sidewalk Records, and Epiphone are giving fans a chance to win the Damn Right Rebel Proud Prize pack featuring an Epiphone Guitar, Custom III Sector 9 Skate Deck, New Album from Hank III Damn Right Rebel Proud on limited edition Vinyl & CD.
  • No Depression reports a March 24 release of Keep Your Soul: A Tribute To Doug Sahm on Vanguard Records. Some of the artists coerting the legendary Texas musician is Los Lobos, Alejandro Escovedo, Dave Alvin, Delbert McClinton, Charlie Sexton, the Gourds, Jimmie Vaughan, Terry Allen (with Joe Ely), Greg Dulli, Freda & the Firedogs, Joe “King” Carrasco with the Texas Tornados, and Doug’s son Shawn Sahm (teaming with Doug’s longtime bandmate Augie Meyers). The disc’s tracks cover all periods of Sahm’s career, from the heyday of the Sir Douglas Quartet to Sahm’s solo outings and up through his later tenure in the Texas Tornados.
  • The Americana Music Association now has an Amazon storefront featuring lots of alt.country, roots and yes, Americana goodies just in time for Christmas. stock up kids, those CDs won’t buy themselves!