If Kinky Friedman had done nothing more than share his daring and defiant brand of outlaw country in the early ‘70s and merely mined his associations with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson as part of that celebrity circle, it likely would have been enough to ensure his immortality. After all, anyone who names his band “The Texas Jewboys” and proceeds to record such would-be classics as “Ride ‘Em Jewboy,” “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Any More,” “Asshole from El Paso,” and “Get Your Biscuits In the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed” is bound to win some notoriety to begin with.
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He is, if nothing else, an unapologetic insurgent.
Nevertheless, Friedman’s fame didn’t end there. He claims to be the first Jew to star at the Grand Ole’ Opry. He ran for governor of Texas in 2006 (and actually claimed over twelve percent of the vote), and won the hearts of animal lovers everywhere when he opened his Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch which, at one point, harbored over 1,000 stray and abandoned dogs.
Who couldn’t love and admire a man like that?
Still, he can throw a conversation for a loop. “I had a very harrowing experience a while ago playing with my chihuahua,” Friedman informs his caller immediately after picking up his phone. “To paraphrase my father, ‘If you find yourself in a fight with a chihuahua, you’ve already lost.’”
You certainly can’t argue with that logic.
Fortunately, Friedman’s at no such disadvantage when it comes to making music. Although his album output was relatively sparse during the ‘90s and early on in the new millennium — a long overdue tribute album, Pearls in the Snow — The Songs of Kinky Friedman didappear in 1998 — he’s more than made up for it in the last five years with a trio of releases that rank among his best efforts yet. The Loneliest Man I Ever Met from 2015, Circus of Life, released just last year, and his new opus, Resurrection all reflect a more serious and sobering side of “The Kinkster,” a reflection of what’s best described as a decidedly meditative mood best befitting a man who recently turned 75.
“Can you believe how old I am?” He queried rhetorically. So
too, Friedman has always lamented the fact that his recordings have yet to
bring him the monetary rewards he deserved. Fortunately however, he sees the
possibility that Resurrection, true to its title, may change all that.
“Circus of Life was destined never to be played on the radio, but this one may actually be a financial pleasure,” he mused. “Then again, the really great songwriters are destined to live in a gutter.”
During an hour and 40 minute discussion a few days prior to Christmas, Friedman freely shared his theories on any number of things, none of which he was reticent to express, be it his explanation of why so many mass murderers are named “Wayne,” the genuine genius of Paul Simon, memorable quotes from Oscar Wilde and other literary greats, and why Dallas, Texas, yours truly’s former hometown, was once dubbed “the city that rooted for Goliath to win.” Clearly, his prolific prowess of late easily goes hand in glove with his abundance of off-kilter observations.
“To judge your own work is hard to do,: Kinky concedes. “But a lot of people that know my work say this latest album is the greatest album I’ve ever done.” It’s noted that the song that starts the album, “Mandela’s Blues,” references the fact that the imprisoned future president of South Africa was an avowed fan of Friedman’s music during his years of incarceration. Indeed, it sets the tone for the album overall.
“And it’s all done without oboes,” Friedman points out while complementing producer Larry Campbell’s astute arrangements. He pauses as another thought suddenly comes to him.
“Did you hear my joke about going to the doctor?” Friedman asks, completely out of the blue. “Audiences love this. A guy goes to the doctor, and the doctor says, ‘I’ve got bad news,. You’ve got AIDs and you’ve got Alzheimers.’ The patient replies, ‘Well, at least I don’t have AIDs.’”
Pause for some unavoidable laughter.
And so it goes, as Kinky offers a seemingly non-stop commentary flush with musical musings randomly interspersed with his own impish blend of wit and whimsy.
It rolls in much the same way the inspiration for his songs have freely flowed in recent years. He notes that the song “A Dog in the Sky” was written in the heartbreaking aftermath of his dog Mr. P’s losing fight with a coyote. He was, he said, his constant companion. “Will Rogers once said, ‘If dogs don’t go to heaven, I want to go to the place they went,’” Friedman recalls. Given his reputation as a dog lover, Rogers’ thoughts obviously echo his own.
Friedman then points out that another of the album’s tracks, “Me & Billy Swan,” is significant because it’s the only song written about outlaw country icons that doesn’t mention Willie Nelson or Waylon Jennings. “That’s pretty hard to do,” he maintains. “You won’t find many people who will attempt to do that.”
Songwriting, he suggests, can be a challenge, one that’s farmer difficult than simply performing for an audience. As if to prove his point, he quotes another literary giant. “F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, ‘There are no second acts in America.’ That especially applies to songwriters.”
It’s mentioned that Friedman may be proving that statement wrong with his new opus. He agrees…sort of.
“It may not be as big as Justin Bieber, but at 75, I’d like to see how Justin Bieber will do. I think the first step for me is to be miserable. You’ve got to be miserable. If you’re vastly successful, you’re just not going to write a great song. You’ve got to be bitter or resentful. I fight happiness at every turn. The other secret is to be able to write between the lines and leave room for the imagination.” He goes on to decry the Nashville’s current musical output which he denounces as simply “music by committee.”
“I’m very conscious of my age, being 75 fucking years old,” Friedman concedes. “However I read at a 77 year old level. I’ve just written a song with Chuck E. Weiss, and it’s called ‘See You Down the Highway.’ It’s something that Willie told me three times one afternoon when he was recording the duet parts on Resurrection with me. I was just hanging around. There was no point in me being there. I think now that it might have just been a polite way of Willie telling me to get out of the fucking studio.”
The subject then turns to another telling tune on the album, “Blind Kinky Friedman.” He says that the title originated from a performance he did in Chicago where he was wearing what appeared to be a blind person’s sunglasses. “I thought, what if there is a guy called Blind Kinky Friedman,” Friedman recalls. “And then I realized that there is. It’s me, and it’s all the mistakes I’ve made in my life, all he regrets, all the women that I loved that I deliberately let slip through my fingers, all the animals that I loved that are gone. They’re like silent witnesses. That’s how I wrote that whole record, acknowledging a former sweetheart or a lost cat. That’s who I was writing to. It’s a tip of the hat to a lot of people. It’s a tribute to my folks, the outlaws who didn’t quite make it, the troublemakers who stirred the pot.”
Given that confession, it does in fact
seem that Friedman finds happiness elusive.
“My goal was to break through the white noise of the system
if you can with a record,” he continues. “If that’s even possible. And the
reason is, that Justin Bieber is important to people. You can laugh all you
want. Not to pick on Justin Bieber, but the title Resurrection has a
spiritual definition and it has a religious definition. Mainly it’s being down
for the count, being knocked out and getting up after all that, after people
think you’re done, and being able to fight again. That’s the difference between
being important and being significant. In Europe, people believe that the
troublemakers are the ones who made America great. I don’t think Americans have
quite caught up to that. That too is the difference between being important and
being significant.”
He goes on to cite the work of Paul McCartney after his split with John Lennon as an example. “He did produce a few good works,” Friedman suggests. “But one of them was not ‘Ebony and Ivory.’ I guess he did write ‘Hey Jude,’ but that was inspired by John Lennon. That was the edge. Billy Swan once said I was his favorite songwriter and Kris Kristofferson was his second favorite songwriter. He said ‘Ride ‘Em Jewboy’ was the best song I ever wrote and one of the greatest songs anyone ever wrote. I’m a fan of Neil Young, but I’m more a spiritual fan of Neil Young. I like what he’s doing at his age.”
Indeed, many of Friedman’s own early songs were once dismissed for their sly satirical references. Friedman acknowledges that the ability to get audiences of any size night after night is the key to success.
“Whoever your heroes are is an indication of who you are,” he suggests. “But you can’t try to be significant. However you can be important.”
A suggestion is made that maybe now is the time for Friedman to consider another run for office.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of that
lately,” he laughs. “While I’m delighted, my goal is really to irritate my
detractors.” He says that he still cherishes the fact that he was given the
so-called Male Chauvinist Pig Award from the National Organization of Women for
his song “Get Your Biscuits In the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed” However, he claims
that the single most meaningful honor he ever received was learning that Nelson
Mandela played his first album Sold American repeatedly night after
night and then signed off with “Ride ‘Em Jewboy.”
“It’s the very definition of surreal,” Friedman concedes. “That’s
the measure of a man, to be embedded in a song that has nothing do with your
current situation. That’s the reward right there.”
Friedman’s future plans include reestablishing the camp his parents originally founded on the 300 acre spread where Friedman still resides, Echo Hill Ranch located near Kerrville Texas. The camp will benefit Gold Star kids whose parents were members of the military and killed in combat. “This is what I want to do, work with kids who, you realize, have problems worse than yours. They got dealt the worst hand. We’re not trying to teach to be Christians or Jews or Muslims. The goal is simply to have fun.”
Is this, then, a new chapter in Kinky Friedman’s sometimes turbulent trajectory?
“My commentary is still the same bullshit,” he insists. “I think Kristofferson and I are the only people that totally disdain the modern era. We don’t believe in all that modern shit. As Billy Bob Thornton says, the audience has become the show. There aren’t a lot of performers out there who are older than me. Ray Price once said that when you get old, people don’t care whether you’re doing your best work or you don’t. They only give you a lifetime achievement award or something like that. There’s no challenge in entertaining and enlightening people who really like you. As I said, I get my greatest pleasure from irritating my detractors. There just aren’t as many of them lately.”
