Kinky Friedman - Biography
“I know there’s a bit of Judy Garland in me, but I was always ambivalent about my career as a country musician,” says Kinky Friedman, who outraged Nashville, and the rest of America, when he hit the stage in 1972 as the leader of Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jewboys. “I suppose I’m ambivalent about being a performer too, and since I can use ambivalent correctly in a sentence, it’s probably a good indication that I shouldn’t have been in country music in the first place.”
Friedman’s disclaimer notwithstanding, The Kinkster (as he is wont to call himself) has penned a number of tunes that are potential country standards including “Ride ‘em Jewboy,” “Sold American,” “Highway Cafe” and “Rapid City, South Dakota.” He also wrote outrageous tunes like “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore” and “Waitress (Please Sit on My Face).”
Friedman was born in Chicago, but the family moved to Texas when he was a boy. He grew up playing music and chess, and actually played US Grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky at a competition in Houston. He graduated from UT at Austin with a major in psychology and served in the Peace Corps in Borneo. He started Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jewboys (a play on Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys) in 1971. Commander Cody was an early supporter of Friedman’s country/rock/wiseass hybrid and helped him land a deal with Vanguard Records. Sold American (1973 Vanguard) received rave reviews from rock critics and a mixed reaction from country music fans. Now considered a classic, it fared poorly at the time, although it did earn Freidman a spot on the Grand Ol’ Opry. Tracks included “High on Jesus,” a spiritual love song, “The Ballad of Charles Whitman” a salute to the mass murderer of the same name and the anti-feminist rant “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed.” Billy Swan, John Hartford, and Tompall Glaser and his brothers all contributed to the album.
Friedman’s stage shows were a blend of high energy picking and crude comedy, and he cut two more spotty albums before temporarily retiring from music in the late 70s, Kinky Friedman (1974 Varese) and Lasso from El Paso (1976 Epic). Every so often Friedman unleashes a live recording or a compilation, but none live up to the raw power of The Jewboys in the 70's. Mayhem Aforethought (2005), a live recording of the Jewboys at the Record plant in Sausalito, released on Friedman’s own Sphincter Label, is the best of the bunch.
Since retiring from active performing (“My last gig was a residency at the Lone Star Café in New York City that lasted seven years, which is enough to burn anybody out.”) and moving back to Texas, The Kinkster has become a best selling writer of twisted mysteries (“Written on the last working typewriter in Texas.”) featuring himself in the leading role and peppered with his trademark acerbic wit. “The books have been released in Japanese, Hebrew and 15 other languages, and are a source of great financial pleasure for the Kinkster,” Friedman chuckled.
The books, which include A Case of Lone Star (1987), Elvis, Jesus and Coca Cola (1993), Blast From the Past (1998), Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned (2003) and Road Kill, in which The Kinkster saves Willie Nelson from a curse that’s put upon him after his tour bus runs over an Indian medicine man. Friedman still undertakes mini-tours with his guitar and manuscripts; he reads a few passages, strums a few tunes and takes a few libations. Friedman says he might listen to today’s country music “at gun point,” and prefers to stay at home in Kerrville, “with my fellow Kerrverts, working on projects close to my heart.” He unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Texas in 2006, using the catch phrase “George Bush Did It, How Hard Can It be?” In 2007 he released Live From Austin, TX.
