Sittin’ By the Road cover

Sittin’ By the Road

Blaze Foley

Album · 2010 · Lost Art Records LAR 1020

Sittin’ by the Road is a set of twelve early Blaze Foley recordings, issued by Lost Art Records in 2010 (LAR 1020), more than twenty years after his death. The songs come from a homemade tape from 1977 that Foley had given to a friend in Georgia. He recorded it alone, singing and playing guitar, on the reel-to-reel machine he carried on his travels between Texas and rural Georgia.

Born Michael David Fuller, Foley was little known outside Austin’s songwriting circles when he was shot there and died on 1 February 1989, aged 39. Lost Art had begun releasing his music in 1999 with Live at the Austin Outhouse, and in 2006 issued Cold, Cold World, from recordings kept by Gurf Morlix. The label worked with Foley’s sister, Marsha Weldon, who had won the rights to his estate in 2005.

The album has early versions of songs such as “Cold, Cold World,” “Election Day,” “Clay Pigeons” and “If I Could Only Fly,” which Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard recorded together on Seashores of Old Mexico in 1987. Three songs, “The Way You Smile,” “Fat Boy” and the title song, don’t appear on any other Foley recording. Lost Art later reissued the album on vinyl.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Big Cheeseburgers & Good French Fries 2:15
  2. 2 Clay Pigeons 3:01
  3. 3 Sittin' by the Road 2:19
  4. 4 Slow Boat to China 3:00
  5. 5 Election Day 2:24
  6. 6 Let Me Ride in Your Big Cadillac 2:32
  7. 7 Cold, Cold World Source Recording Blaze Foley · key B · 151 bpm · 3/4 3:23
  8. 8 The Way You Smile 3:14
  9. 9 Rainbows and Ridges 2:15
  10. 10 Fat Boy 2:38
  11. 11 Faded Love and Memories 2:14
  12. 12 If I Could Only Fly 4:04

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