K inky Friedman probably qualifies as Texas’ most beloved musical fringe artist. Admired by presidents across the political spectrum – both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are avowed fans – and friendly with Billy Bob Thornton, Don Imus, and Dwight Yoakam, Friedman long ago passed from the category of singer/songwriter – or even soft-boiled mystery writer – to “personality.” Like Molly Ivins, he has become a professional Texan, someone who is conversant in Lone Star lingo and can break down our peculiar form of insanity for the rest of the world.
Sometimes lost in the cult of Kinky is the fact that he has made some first-rate records, first with his early-’70s band, the Texas Jewboys, and later as a solo artist. If Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings represented the outlaw movement, Kinky was positively gonzo, a kosher cowpoke who trafficked in the same kind of irreverence Hunter Thompson brought to his journalism. What other Texas singer/ songwriter would have written a song like “The Ballad of Charles Whitman,” an oddball tribute to the 1966 University of Texas tower killer? Who else would
| KINKY FRIEDMAN With Claude Morgan 9pm, Thursday, December 11 Casbeers 1719 Blanco 732-3511 |
have dared to pen a love song called “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed”?
In the mid-’70s, Friedman was a sufficiently hip songwriter that he was asked to participate in Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review. These days, his musical activities are slotted around his literary work, or in the case of his current tour, used to promote his upcoming, semi-serious run for governor of Texas. His campaign slogan might not tell us much about his political platform, but it’s pure Kinky: “Why the hell not?” •
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2003.