Oval Room

A jocular, bearded country singer with an untamable wild streak that left him perpetually broke and often homeless, Blaze Foley rambled through the Austin underground of the ‘70s and ‘80s, carousing and performing with the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Butch Hancock, and Lucinda Williams before he met a violent end in the spring of 1989. Almost no recordings of his work saw wide release during his lifetime, but his songs—which blend the hard-bitten poeticism of John Prine with the incisive simplicity of classic honky-tonk—were covered by greats like Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Lucinda Williams, and Lyle Lovett. Oval Room features recordings from the same 1988 gig documented on Lost Art Records’ Live at the Austin Outhouse. As with that release, Oval Room fairly crackles with energy and a rare feeling of camaraderie between audience and performer. Songs like “Springtime in Uganda” and “World War III” provide ample evidence of Foley’s penchant for pitch-black political satire. Yet the strongest material here strikes a more somber note, such as the visionary “Cold, Cold World” and the loser’s tale “Down Here Where I Am.”