Al Foul had this imposing stature, burly almost like a lumberjack, with slicked back hair circa 1950s blue-collar hipster and piercing eyes that at first glance could intimidate.
But get him on stage, strumming his guitar and working the bass drum with his right foot, a makeshift percussion box and tambourine with his left, and the true character of the man came through.
“I think the reason everybody loved him was that he was a really good person,” Tucson guitarist Ben Nisbet said Thursday as news of Foul’s death on Wednesday, May 25, began circulating on social media and among the tight-knit Tucson music community. “He was the person who had an incredibly strong sense of integrity and a remarkable moral compass.”
“He looks like this tough guy, but Al was someone who was very profound and … able to take the best out of life,” added Naim Amor, who also played guitar in Foul’s band for a number of years and had been friends with him for nearly 20. “Definitely not someone who would cry over himself, but someone who was very sensitive and very compassionate.”
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Foul had been battling throat cancer for 18 months and died late Wednesday night at home with his wife, KXCI radio personality Hannah Levin, by his side. He was 50 years old.
Foul — born Alan Lewis Curtis — took his name from his time with Boston’s short-lived drunk rock punk band the Foul Mouthed Elves. He was in his late teens when he moved to Arizona from his native Boston, first to Phoenix and then to Tucson.
He started performing in Tucson in the early 1990s with his band Al Foul & the Shakes and solo as a one-man band, singing rockabilly-influenced original songs that beckoned the birth of American rock.
“He was such a unique entity in town. He was one of the very few who channeled that incredible old school rock ‘n roll sound,” said Hotel Congress music booker David Slutes, who was fronting the popular Sidewinders/Sand Rubies band around the time Foul was starting his Tucson music career. “No one did what Al Foul did. Some people did rockabilly and roots rock, but his energy and commitment was unlike any one else.”
His music was rooted in rockabilly and punk with flashes of country and Americana that he performed at a number of Tucson venues including the old Vaudeville on East Congress Street to Che’s Lounge on North Fourth Avenue.
“Musically, he was fearless,” said bluesman Tom Walbank, who met Foul not long after Walbank moved to Tucson in 2001. “You could describe him as country or rock and roll, but he was just Al. He had arrived at his own genre, very much in his way as you would describe Johnny Cash.”
“He was an incredible musician and one of the most naturally gifted …….