Richard Samet "Kinky" Friedman (November 1, 1944 – June 27, 2024) was an American singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician, and columnist for Texas Monthly, who styled himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain.
Friedman was one of two independent candidates in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election. Receiving 12.6% of the vote, Friedman placed fourth in the six-person race.
Biography Richard Samet Friedman was born in Chicago on November 1, 1944,Kinky Friedman, Texas songwriter, satirist and folk hero, dies at 79 The Washington Post. Retrieved June 28, 2024. to Jewish parents, Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and his wife Minnie (Samet) Friedman. Both of his parents were the children of Russian Jewish immigrants. When Friedman was young, his family moved to the Texas Hill Country where they opened a summer camp called Echo Hill Ranch.
Friedman had an early interest in both pop music and chess, and was chosen at age seven as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous games in Houston. Reshevsky won all 50 games, but Friedman was, by far, the youngest competitor.
Friedman graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas, in 1962. He subsequently earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, majoring in psychology. He took part in the Plan II Honors program and was a member of the Tau Delta Phi fraternity. During his first year, Chinga Chavin gave Friedman the nickname "Kinky" because of his curly hair.Lone Star: Kinky Friedman on the campaign trail by Dan Halpern, The New Yorker, August 22, 2005.
Friedman served two years in the United States Peace Corps, teaching in Borneo, Malaysia with John Gross. During his service in the Peace Corps, he met future road manager Dylan Ferrero, with whom he worked for the remainder of his life.Kinky Friedman Biography , Kinkajou Records. Friedman lived at Echo Hill Ranch, his family's summer camp near Kerrville, Texas. He founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, also located near Kerrville, whose mission is to care for stray, abused and aging animals; to date, the ranch has saved more than 1,000 dogs from animal euthanasia.
On June 27, 2024, it was announced that Friedman had died at his home at Echo Hill Ranch, Medina, Bandera County, Texas, from complications of Parkinson's disease. He was 79.
Music career Friedman formed his first band, King Arthur & the Carrots, while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. The band, which poked fun at surf music, recorded only one single in 1966 ("Schwinn 24/Beach Party Boo Boo").
By 1973, Friedman had formed his second band, Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jewboys, which many took to be a play on the name of the famous band Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. In keeping with the band's satirical nature, each member had a comical name: in addition to Kinky there were Little Jewford, Big Nig, Panama Red, Wichita Culpepper, Sky Cap Adams, Rainbow Colours, and Snakebite Jacobs. More conventionally named roadie Jack Slaughter and road manager Dylan Ferrero rounded out the crew and provided most of the driving of the "tour bus", a Cadillac with 10-year-old expired license plates and a propensity to break down (but, according to Friedman, her talent lay in her ability to stop on a dime and pick up the change).
Friedman's father objected to the name of the band, calling it a "negative, hostile, peculiar thing", which gave Kinky even more reason to choose the name.
Arriving on the wave of country rock following on from Gram Parsons, The Band, and Eagles, Friedman originally found cult fame as a country and western singer. His break came in 1973 thanks to Commander Cody of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, who contacted Vanguard Music on his behalf. Friedman released Kinky Friedman in 1974 for ABC Records, then toured with Bob Dylan in 1975–1976.Tucker, Stephen R. (1998). "Kinky Friedman". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 184. His repertoire mixed social commentary ("We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You") and maudlin ballads ("Western Union Wire") with raucous humor (such as "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed"). His "Ride 'Em Jewboy" was an extended tribute to the victims of the Holocaust.
One of his most famous songs is "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore," a song in which Kinky verbally and physically beats up a drunken white racist who berates blacks, Jews, Italians, Greeks, Irish people, and Sigma Nus in a bar, with lyrics such as,
Oh, they ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore, They ain't makin' carpenters that know what nails are for
Other Friedman tunes include "The Ballad of Charles Whitman," in which Friedman lampooned Charles Whitman's sniper attack from the University of Texas at Austin's Main Building tower on August 1, 1966. He also covered Chinga Chavin's "Asshole from El Paso", a parody of Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee".
One of Friedman's most infamous concerts was a 1973 performance in Buffalo, New York; upon performing "Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed" (a song that lampoons feminism), a group of what Friedman described as "cranked-up lesbians" entered into a fight with the band and forced the concert to end early while Friedman and the band were escorted off stage. The National Organization for Women awarded Friedman the "Male Chauvinist Pig Award" later that year, an award Friedman took with pride. Friedman would not return to Buffalo until 2012.Kunz-Goldman, Mary (June 26, 2012). Kinky Friedman comes to town: Texas troubadour has enjoyed a long career by thumbing his nose at political correctness . The Buffalo News. Retrieved June 26, 2012. Another was at The Boarding House in early-March 1975 when an offended Buffy Sainte-Marie rushed on stage and snatched the war bonnet that Friedman was wearing while he and his band were performing "Miss Nickelodeon," a composition that spoofs the indigenous peoples of the Americas."For the Record," Cashbox (magazine), March 8, 1975. Retrieved December 25, 2021Sullivan, Mary Lou. Everything's Bigger in Texas: The Life & Times of Kinky Friedman. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2021
Friedman and his band taped an Austin City Limits show on November 11, 1975, which was never aired.Greenspoon, Leonard J. Jews and Humor. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2011. Retrieved December 25, 2021 According to the show's executive producer, Terry Lickona, this is the first and only time in the show's long history that an episode went unaired. Lickona told the Austin Chronicle "I've seen it many times – it's a very popular party tape among friends. I think it was a great show, and it might be as offensive today as it was back then."
In early 1976, he joined Bob Dylan on the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour.
Friedman was the musical guest on the Season 2 fifth episode of Saturday Night Live which aired on October 23, 1976. He performed his own composition "Dear Abbie".Saturday Night Live S02E05: Steve Martin – Internet Archive. Retrieved December 25, 2021
Although hard to verify, given the number of Jewish-origin entertainers in country/hillbilly-tour circles (e.g. Gilbert Maxwell "Broncho Billy" Anderson), Friedman claims to have been the first full-blooded Jew to take the stage at the Grand Ole Opry.For a complication of Friedman's assertion, see Stacy Harris, "Kosher Country: Success and Survival on Nashville's Music Row," Southern Jewish History 2 (1999): pp. 111–28
In February 2007, Sustain Records released a compilation of the songs of Kinky Friedman sung by other artists called Why the Hell Not ... The compilation includes contributions by Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, and Kelly Willis.
On July 20, 2007, Friedman hosted the Concert to Save Town Lake to honor the memory of Lady Bird Johnson and her efforts to protect and preserve the shores of Town Lake in Austin, Texas.
On April 27, 2011, Friedman launched his Springtime for Kinky Tour (cf. "Springtime for Hitler") in Kansas City, Missouri, at Knuckleheads Saloon; it included dates in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky before heading towards the East Coast. This was followed by a tour of Australia with Van Dyke Parks.
In the summer of 2014, Friedman recalled the story of how he discovered Nelson Mandela became a fan of his music. While Friedman was touring South Africa in the late 80s, on a book tour, Friedman met a man named Dali Tombo who was the son of a mentor of Nelson Mandela. Tombo told Friedman that Nelson Mandela would obsessively play Friedman's album Sold American while in prison, and had a particular affinity for the song Ride 'em Jewboy.
Writing career After his music career stalled in the 1980s, Friedman shifted his creative focus to writing detective novels. His books have similarities to his song lyrics, featuring a fictionalized version of himself solving crimes in New York City and dispensing jokes, wisdom, recipes, charm, and Jameson's whiskey in equal measure. They are written in a straightforward style which owes a debt to Raymond Chandler. The Kinky character views himself as a latter-day Sherlock Holmes and he is aided in his investigations by his close friend Larry Sloman aka Ratso who assumes the role of Dr. Watson.
He authored two novels that do not star the Kinky Friedman character: Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned and The Christmas Pig.
Friedman also wrote a regular column for the magazine Texas Monthly from April 2001 to March 2005 which was suspended during his run for governor of Texas.List of Friedman's articles and Hail to the Kinkster from Texas Monthly. In 2008, Texas Monthly brought his column back on a bimonthly basis.
Two books have been published collecting some of these nonfiction writings, as well as previously unpublished ones: Scuse Me While I Whip This Out and Texas Hold'em. He has also published a travelog (The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic) and an etiquette guide.
Friedman's early books have been republished by Friedman's own Vandam Press as ebooks. During March and April 2011, Vandam released seven of Friedman's early titles including: Greenwich Killing Time, A Case of Lone Star, Musical Chairs, When The Cat's Away, Frequent Flyer, Roadkill and the rarely seen Curse of the Missing Puppet Head. Elvis Jesus and Coca-Cola, God Bless John Wayne, Blast From The Past, Armadillos and Old Lace, and two nonfiction books, Drinker With A Writing Problem and Heroes of A Texas Childhood were released in 2011. E-book releases are announced on Friedman's X (Twitter) feed and Facebook page, "TheRealKinkster".
Friedman also announced (via Jim Bessman's column at examiner.com) the upcoming release of all Vandam Press titles as unabridged audio books "read by the author".
The recurring character "Rambam", a New York private investigator and friend of the Friedman character in the books, is based on the real-life investigator Steven Rambam, who acted as a technical advisor for the real Friedman.CNN.com "Kinky Friedman inspiration gets busted" July 26, 2006. Old Peace Corps friend and long time road manager Dylan Ferrero is also a recurring character in Kinky's mystery novels; his character is known for only speaking in rock and roll quotes, a trait taken from real life.
Politics
In 1986, Friedman ran for justice of the peace in Kerrville, Texas, as a Republican but lost the election.
In 2004, Friedman began an ostensibly serious, though colorful, campaign to become the governor of Texas in 2006. One of his stated goals is the "dewussification" of Texas. Among his campaign slogans were "How Hard Could It Be?", "Why The Hell Not?", "My Governor is a Jewish Cowboy", and "He ain't Kinky, he's my Governor" (cf. "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother").