Texas Music News — August 6, 2026
Dallas singer-songwriter Joshua Ray Walker joins a star-studded tribute to the late Blaze Foley. The album lands this week on Austin’s Lost Art Records. Foley never got to see how far his songs would travel. A gunshot ended his life in 1989, when he was only 39. But his catalog kept climbing anyway, working into campfires, honky-tonks and now a fresh tribute record.
First, the album, called Sittin’ with Blaze, arrives Friday, Aug. 7. It’s the ninth Foley-focused project since his death, following a handful of live releases. Now, 13 tracks dig into Foley’s mid-1970s writing. That era produced “Clay Pigeons,” “If I Could Only Fly” and “Cold, Cold World.” Those songs land like a slow bruise: tender at first touch, and deeper the longer you press on them.
How Joshua Ray Walker Keeps These Songs Alive
After all, Walker isn’t a stranger to that kind of writing. The Dallas native mines hard truths from small moments in his own songs. So a Foley tribute fits him like an old boot. He’s one of more than a dozen artists on the record, alongside Phosphorescent and Lucy Dacus.
Author and historian Joe Nick Patoski writes in the album’s liner notes that Foley’s lyrics “transcended the character singing them.” “The hallmark of a great song is outliving its author,” Patoski adds. Like Fort Worth’s Townes Van Zandt, Foley found poetry in late nights and last call. Though he never lived to see his own influence, this generation keeps digging him back up.
Now, Joshua Ray Walker isn’t just lending his voice to Foley’s legacy. He’s building his own with a national tour behind his sixth album, Ain’t Dead Yet. First, the run kicks off Sept. 9 in Denver. Then it closes back home Dec. 12 at the Kessler Theater. That finale pairs with a screening of the documentary Thank You for Listening. Foley’s ghost, it turns out, still knows how to fill a room.
Details at KXT 91.7
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