Tales from the Tour Bus - The Vickery Family

Blaze Foley

Narrator: Nobody said about Blaze Foley, real named Michael Fuller. One time when he was young singing with his family called "The Singing Fuller Family," not even the Singing Cookes, or the Singing Echoes, also known as the Epperson Family. Lecil, Lulu, Lonnie, Rodney and Melba were hearing gospel songs all over again, not as Blaze.

Hank Sinatra: He was the nicest asshole you'd ever meet. And that's something, with his looks, you'd never guess.

Chuck Lamb: He was a very scary-looking guy.

Hank: Scary-looking guy, yeah.

Narrator: Hank Sinatra and Chuck Lamb witnessed the magic of Blaze Foley more times than either of them can count. They remember Blaze as an intimidating presence on first impression.

Narrator: Blaze walked with a big limp, and that even made him more scary, more pirate-like, you know. He even scared some of the bikers. He was just a big 'ol goon. And when he started singing, you just completely lost all thoughts of what you thought when you first saw the guy.

Chuck: Blaze had a bet with somebody, a hundred dollar bet with somebody that he could get kicked out of every bar that had live music in Austin.

Hank: Yeah, he literally got thrown out of every bar in town.

Chuck: The Outhouse was the last place. I was not gonna help Blaze win that bet. So we managed to put up with him.

Gurf Morlix: Met this character, Blaze Foley, back in 1977, and, uh, he had this guitar in this case that he wanted to show me. Actually, he wanted to sell it to me.

Narrator: Singer-songwriter Gurf Morlix, maybe the greatest name in country music history, was playing a gig when Blaze Foley approached him with a proposition.

Gurf: I was in the middle of a set, and he came up to me and wanted to talk to me, like, in between songs. And he's, like, six-three, six-four maybe, long hair, cowboy hat, just looked like a weirdo. And I said, well, you know, "When I take a break, can we talk then?" And a little later on, he showed me this guitar that he wanted to sell me. It was an old acoustic guitar from the early 1900s, and, uh, I found out later it wasn't his guitar.

Chuck: He always had to borrow somebody's guitar to play most of the time.

Hank: Yeah, I don't know if he ever actually owned one.

Gurf: I guess he sold that guitar to about four different people. And none of 'em ever got it.

Narrator: A few days later, Blaze played his first-ever performance in Austin, the city where he would build his legend.

Gurf: He got a gig in a it was in a disco, just a ridiculous place for him to be, and we kind of sat around, and he had a valise with a bunch of stuff in it, and he would pull out pictures and say, "Well, here's the person from this song," and he'd play the song while the picture was being passed around.

Narrator: One of the pictures he pulled out was of himself as a kid, for a little number he called, "Fat Boy."

Lindsey Horton: He used to tell me about when he'd be at home as a kid that he'd sit down and eat a stick of butter. He'd just sit down for a snack and he'd just eat a stick of butter. And of course, you do things like that, it's gonna pack some weight on you. I first met Blaze when I was working the Sears store, when I was in high school.

Narrator: Lindsey Horton was in automotive. Blaze, or Michael Fuller, as he was known then, worked in paint and hardware. He was a big kid from Malvern, Arkansas, who had a thing about his weight and his name, apparently. He started introducing himself on stage as Deputy Dawg, like the cartoon.