Blaze Foley Doc Heads to Scandinavia

The late subject of the documentary Blaze Foley: Duct Tape Messiah would no doubt have approved. This October and November, the tale of an Austin musician “destined... for obscurity” will be road showing across Sweden and Norway, as well as hitting the 2012 edition of Finland's annual Rokumentti festival.

The homeless, itinerant Foley was shot to death in 1989 while trying to defend a friend. The Lucinda Williams song “Drunken Angel” and Townes Van Zandt composition “Blaze's Blues” are both about him. Among the many other recognizable names to have sung his unpublished songs over the years: Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Lyle Lovett.



There have been a couple of books written about Foley. The 2008 tome Living in the Woods in a Tree was written by Sybil Rosen, the subject of Foley's most famous song (“If I Could Only Fly”), while 2001's Telling Stories, Writing Songs compiles interviews with several dozen friends and colleagues of this beloved Texas troubadour.

The documentary was a labor of love, completed in late 2010 after a 12-year research, legal and filmmaking process. (As well as an infamous snafu at the 2009 edition of SXSW.)

Director Kevin Triplett previously made a privately commissioned doc about an historic home in Granger, Texas. Foley meanwhile was born Michael David Fuller, in a tree house, on December 18th, 1949.

[Blaze Foley: Duct Tape Messiah]