When Al Foul left this world in the twilight hours of May 25, 2022, he roared like a lion. His arms were stick-straight, precisely parallel to his body, fists clenched and holding a posture not unlike a daredevil diver heading feet first into some sort of otherworldly, aquatic abyss.
It was a frightening, beautiful, and fully fitting exit for a man and musician who had already been described as a living legend long before he was diagnosed with the laryngeal cancer that took his life.
Over his 50 years on this mortal coil, Alan Lewis Curtis overcame a bleakly violent, impoverished childhood in Hyde Park, Boston and went on to live a richly adventurous, extraordinary life, primarily under his stage name, Al Foul.
After forays into punk rock, mostly with his Tucson-based band Al Foul and The Shakes, he settled into a solo configuration, occasionally augmented with various players from Tucson and always with his reputation for charming showmanship and ribald humor intact. The joyous mayhem of his delivery made his performances memorable and eventually underground iconic.
He toured Europe for decades and gained a particularly devoted following in France and Germany where his shows took on a more Lynchian quality with the input of his touring partner, DJ Laurent Allinger ( a.k.a. “The French Tourist”), who added surreal samples and textures that echoed Foul’s chosen Southwest home. Whether he was playing biker festivals in tiny villages or sharing larger stages with King Khan and The Shrines or The BellRays, Al was always utterly unforgettable.
During the pandemic, Foul was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer and was cared for by his wife, KXCI DJ Hannah Levin, until his death in 2022. Al’s battle and their love story was chronicled by local PBS station AZPM and in 2024 the resulting documentary “Al & Hannah” won the Edward R. Murrow award for Best News Documentary.
Come Back a Dog is Al Foul's final album [Release Date: October 11, 2024], a combination of originals and covers that were fan favorite staples of his live sets. From the starkly prophetic title track and his gleeful take on the Muscle Shoals’ staple “Six Days on the Road” to the neo-noir spin on the American traditional murder ballad “Frankie & Johnny” and the haunting atmospherics of “Darker Shade of Blue”, Foul sketches a gritty-yet-compassionate portrait of raw Americana that could sit comfortably on a shelf between a Raymond Carver anthology and a Tom Waits’ boxed set.
