Wanted More Dead Than Alive by Blaze Foley

We played together every time we could with my brother, David and many other friends and musicians. We played for the fun of the music, in any place that would let us. We didn't care about the money and hardly ever made any, but every now and then they would let us run a bar tab [mistake, mistake].

Fast forward about 6 years, to us sitting in the Austin Outhouse, a place we all had been thrown out of many times, but always gravitated back to. Blaze said that he really wanted to do a country album in a good studio, with us and other friends. So we made it happen. We had a good friend and lawyer, Peggy Underwood (who, by the way, kept us all out of jail), who really wanted to help Blaze with his career. She was very involved in Blaze's music and, contrary to what a lot of people say, did love and believe in him and was willing to financially support the project.

We booked Bee Creek Recording Studio in Driftwood, Texas, run by bass player and engineer, Spencer Starnes. The core group for the project was my brother David, on bass, Joe Gracey on acoustic guitar, Charlie Day on steel guitar, Kimmie Rhodes on vocals and me on drums. We recorded the first day and got the 10 tracks that are here pretty much done. On the second day we cleaned up the tracks and had Kimmie record her vocals. We recorded these songs live, rather than over-dubbing the instruments one at a time. Everything was going great and we were getting ready to start the 3rd day, when it just fell apart. No more days were booked, no one got paid, and the money disappeared. No explanation was given to me, Blaze, or anybody else. Just like that, it was over. Luckily, some of us made copies of what we had done up until then. Then, over time, copies of copies were handed around to friends, until they too just disappeared. The master tapes on which all the music was on also were missing, supposedly burned up in a fire, and for 15 years we thought everything was lost or destroyed.

Around the 4th of July in 2005, I got a call from an old friend of mine, Mel Pouch, who has been living up north for years. He said he was listening to an old CD that he had found on the dashboard of his car. Mel said he thought it was the songs David and I did with Blaze at Bee Creek. I could not believe my ears, and asked him to send it to me ASAP. Two days later, it showed up at my house. I listened to it with David and, sure enough - there it was, the lost Blaze Foley Country Album cuts. The quality was not there yet, but we said that we had to try to save it.

So, with the blessing of Marsha Weldon - Blaze's sister, the skills of Jon Sheppard in his studio, and a lot of hard work, we have pulled the last ten songs of Blaze Foley's life out of that long forgotten CD. For me, it's the best I've ever heard Blaze sing. When we originally recorded them, he was truly happy and so excited about the record. This is finally the Blaze Foley album he always wanted. It has risen like the Phoenix from the ashes - this is as good as it gets. There are literally hundreds of Blaze's friends that have kept his memory alive, and always will. I hope this brings them joy, and I hope we have done Blaze proud."

Leland Waddell; friend, racecar driver, and malcontent

"Death, It has been cynically observed, can be a great career move and the title that David & Leland Waddell have given to the miraculously rediscovered album they played on and 'semi-produced' back in 1990 reflects how Michael Fuller (aka Blaze Foley) has become far better known since his murder in 1991 than he was in his lifetime, despite a dearth of recordings, just the 'Live at the Austin Outhouse' cassette released just after his death, re-issued on CD in 1999, with a second volume, 'Oval Room', in 2004, plus a clutch of patchy tribute albums...

Only four of the ten songs, 'If Only I Could Fly, Down Here Where I Am, Faded Love & Memories, and Clay Pigeons (always my favorite) are on either of the live albums, the others being Blue Eyes (Ooh, Love), 1-2-3-4-5, Alibis, It's Just You, Calvin Russell's Life of a Texas Man and the late Jubal Clark's Black Granite, but these versions of the familiar material are a revelation. Foley and his players sound like they're sitting around on someone's porch having a picking party. They might not have been so relaxed if they had known that the shutters were about to come down, and we can only be grateful that they were recording live rather than laying down tracks, but this is one of the great albums of 2005, even if it's 15 years late." 4.5 star review

John Conquest; Third Coast Music Review: October 2005

"This CD is remarkable. Right off the bat its because it is a rare studio recording done by an eccentric but totally committed artist who was shot dead in the prime of his young life. I knew Blaze and heard him create and perform these songs and the thing that so got your respect was the pure way he sang the things inside him. He could at any time and in any shape pick up his guitar and get in the "bubble," you know, where suddenly he is doing art and you just want to look at that space where he is, because something is going on there in the aura he has created. This CD is remarkable because that "bubble" is there."

Calvin Russell; friend and fellow musician

Average Customer Review: 4