Sittin' With Blaze, A Tribute to Blaze Foley

Plenty of country artists sing about living the outlaw lifestyle, but few actually walked the walk the way the late Blaze Foley did. Shot and killed by a friend’s son in 1989 at age 39 during a dispute over welfare checks, the Texas-raised Foley left behind a small but potent discography of hardscrabble country music rife with colorful characters and tall tales. This tribute album pulls together an all-star roster of contemporary left-of-center ̶artists to honor Foley, ranging from relative up-and-comers like Nashville’s Angela Autumn, who brings plaintive tenderness to the 1984 cut “Rainbows & Ridges,” to living legend Lucinda Williams, whose rendition of “If I Could Only Fly,” a Foley original later popularized by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, closes the project on a poignant note. Other artists on Sittin’ with Blaze include psych-folk singer-songwriter Phosphorescent, who opens the album with his own light-as-air interpretation of “If I Could Only Fly,” and indie darling Lucy Dacus, whose rich alto suits Foley’s melancholy lyrics on “Clay Pigeons.”