Kinky Friedman, singer, satirist and political candidate, dies at 79

A rabble rousing man of letters with a penchant for self-mythology and a deep love of animals, whose music and writing was loved by everyone from Bob Dylan to Bill Clinton, musician, author and erstwhile political candidate Kinky Friedman died Thursday. He was 79.

Born Nov. 1, 1944, Friedman came to the music world’s attention in the early and mid-1970s with his band Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys' absurdist satirical songs written in a folksy cowboy style, with shocking titles like “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed” and “The Ballad of Charles Whitman.”

He was signed to Vanguard Records in the early 70s after an introduction to the label by Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel, who met Friedman through George Frayne (aka Commander Cody) in California. 

Friedman opened a show for Benson’s Western swing band in Berkeley soon thereafter. The outlandish Friedman took the stage in the hot bed of feminism wearing red, white and blue cowboy chaps, smoking a cigar, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a guitar in the other and played, “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed.” 

The women in the audience went ballistic, Benson recalled, with some storming the stage and calling the performer a pig. The show would be indicative of the kind of provocation that would define Friedman’s musical career.

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“That was his life,” Benson said. But he was a master. His songs were incredible. He was a great writer, and his books were fascinating,” Benson said. 

Friedman's outrageous life of performance was tempered by a tenderness. He was committed to the plight of animals. He founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch in the Hill Country where was raised, and cared for thousands of stray, abused and aging animals.

Friedman, whose lyrics and performances led to lapped knees, dropped jaws, shaken fists and eye rolls, turned to novel writing after a decade in the music business, penning hard-boiled crime novels in the style of Raymond Chandler, in which his eponymous character usually played the lead role. 

Texas Monthly editor-in-chief Evan Smith tapped Friedman to write a back page column, titled The Last Roundup, for the magazine in 2001.

“The cover of the magazine is traditionally its front door, it’s its way in,” Smith told the American-Statesman. “And I wanted people to have a second door to the magazine. The thing about him is he kind of flew by his own set of coordinates. He was an incredibly complicated person: very talented and unapologetically inappropriate. All good media at the appropriate time and in the appropriate ways push boundaries, and I thought that he would push boundaries and he would actually expand our audience to include his audience or at least give us the opportunity to win over people who had not read the magazine before.

"Undeniably that happened," Smith continued. "I think he also ran some people off. His sense of humor was not everybody else’s sense of humor. It was absolutely mine. I loved what he did on balance."

The outrageous performative side of Friedman was tempered by a tenderness that could be surprising at times, such as his tear-jerking 2001 column titled "The Navigator," about his late father, won the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal during World War II.

Friedman’s column was put on hold for the musician-scribe-provocateur's 2006 run as an independent for Texas Governor in 2006 with the slogan “Why the hell not?”

He came in fourth with 12.45% of the vote in a crowded field that included Republican incumbent — and winner — Rick Perry.

His plan was to collect support from a swath of Texas voters who had grown disillusioned with the two major parties, but Friedman was realistic about his chances in Texas.

"Part of the charm of my quixotic campaign is that it may be taken as a joke by some, an article of faith by others," he wrote. "To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the other guy's got the experience — that's why I'm running."

Additional reporting by John Moritz.