Kinky Friedman

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Kinky Friedman in Bastrop , Texas October 2006

Richard S. Friedman , called "Kinky" Friedman, (born October 31, 1944 in Chicago , Illinois ) is an American country musician , writer and politician .

Life

Richard Friedman was born as the son of Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and Minnie Samet Friedman were born. His family moved to a ranch in Texas during his childhood . At a young age he developed a great fondness for both music and chess . As a seven year old he played a simultaneous game against the chess grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky .

Friedman attended Austin High School until 1962 and graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology in 1966 . He then served two years in the Peace Corps in Borneo and other countries in the Southwest Pacific. His nickname "Kinky" (twisted, quirky, screwed up) goes back to the country musician Nick "Chinga" Chavin, who alluded to his then curly hair.

He currently lives on Echo Hill Ranch, his family's summer camp in Kerrville , Texas, near Medina , and in Greenwich Village , Manhattan . He also founded the "Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch", which takes care of stray, abused and old animals.

music

Friedman founded a country band in 1971 , which he named "The Texas Jewboys" after his Jewish roots. The band first released the albums Sold American (1973), Kinky Friedman (1974) and Lasso From El Paso (1976).

His lyrics are often sarcastic and have an idiosyncratic black humor , and sometimes he has been accused of sexism . In particular, the song "Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns In The Bed" earned him a lot of criticism from American women's associations. The American organization National Organization for Women awarded him in 1974 the title of "Male Chauvinist Pig of the Year". Qualified as a sexist in this way, Friedman countered with the song: "Yes, I'm the Sexiest" .

He toured u. a. with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and starred in the Grand Ole Opry . Occasionally he still plays at live concerts but mostly focuses on his writing.

Novels

After his career as a musician, the kinkster, as he calls himself, switched to writing detective novels in the 1980s. The idea came to him after rescuing a hostage from a bank robbery. The books have autobiographical traits. The first-person narrator is mostly Kinky Friedman himself, who became a private detective in the books after his career as a country singer. Friedman mixes reality and fiction. The plot mostly takes a back seat to make room for philosophically tinged anecdotes and explanations about cigars, Jameson whiskey , cowboy hats and boots, cats and Kinky's bizarre circle of friends. The American country scene and the Greenwich Village pub scene also occupy a large place in the books.

Friedman's best-known fans include Bob Dylan , Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela , in Germany Wiglaf Droste and Franz Dobler .

politics

In the early 1980s, Kinky Friedman ran unsuccessfully for the post of Justice of the Peace in Kerrville. In 2004 he announced his candidacy as an independent in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election . For reasons of journalistic integrity, he inevitably dropped his column in the Texas Monthly Review in the course of his candidacy .

Kinky Friedman describes himself as a "political amateur". Kinky Friedman names the reasons for his political involvement in the fact that Texas is currently governed under its means. He accuses the established parties in Texas, among other things, of being corrupt and lobbyist. He names his political goals in his program “Why the Hell not Kinky?”. He gives top priority to educational reform. This is to be financed through the legalization of gambling. The Peace Corps , where he served should be the model for a volunteer organization to promote the Texas Youth, secondary. He also advocates judicial reform, the main aim of which is to prevent innocent people from being sentenced to death. He named the promotion of bio-diesel as an environmental goal, and Texas should become number one in the world in this area.

His struggle against "political correctness" was an integral part of his election program. In his opinion, real Texans don't need any veiled and carefully worded press releases. Because Kinky Friedman is a cat lover, he also included the ban on the amputation of cat's claws in his election manifesto.

"If elected, I would ask Willie Nelson to be the head of the Texas Rangers and Energy Czar and Laura Bush to take charge of the Texas Peace Corps to improve education in the state. I'd ask my Palestinian hairdresser, Farouk Shami, to be Texas' ambassador to Israel. We've worked together to create Farouk & Friedman olive oil. The oil comes from the Holy Land and all of the profits go to benefit Israeli and Palestinian children. " (Kinky Friedman, quotation from the election campaign)

In the elections of November 7, 2006, he fell significantly with around 13% of the vote against incumbent Governor Rick Perry (39%). Despite support from alternative media such as YouTube and campaign blogs, as well as from musician colleagues who sympathized with his candidacy, such as Mojo Nixon , Friedman was unable to assert himself against the established party representatives.

Others

  • Kinky Friedman's circle of friends includes former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush , who both invited him to the White House . In his column "Hail to the Kinkster" from November 2001, he described the friendship with the two.
  • Kinky Friedman is a cat lover and repeatedly addresses this in his books.

Works (selection)

Discography (excerpt)

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Kinky Friedman
  US 132 02/01/1975 (6 weeks)
Singles
Sold American
  CountryTemplate: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / country wrong 69 07/14/1973 (8 weeks)
  • Sold American (1973)
  • Kinky Friedman (1974)
  • Lasso From El Paso (1976)
  • Under the Double Ego (1983)
  • Old Testaments and New Revelations (1992)
  • From One Good American To Another (1995)
  • Classic Snatches from Europe (2000)
  • Mayhem Aforethought (2005)
  • They Ain't Makin 'Jews Like Jesus Anymore (2005)
  • The Loneliest Man I Ever Met (2016)
  • Circus of Life (2018)
  • Resurrection (2019)
  • Wiglaf Droste reads: Kinky Friedman - Lone Star , from the American by Hans-Michael Bock, 4 CDs, Bear Family Records 2005, audio CD with 1 booklet, ISBN 3-89916-135-1
  • Wiglaf Droste reads: Kinky Friedman - Greenwich Killing Time , from the American by Hans-Michael Bock, 5 CDs, Bear Family Records 2005, ISBN 3-89916-134-3

literature

  • McGovern, Mike: Eat, Drink, and Be Kinky. A Feast of Wit and Faboulous Recipes for Fans of Kinky Friedman , 1999, ISBN 0-684-85674-3
  • Swafford, M. Allen: The Kinky File. Investigating The Mystery of Richard "Kinky" Friedman , 2003, ISBN 0-9702383-5-5
  • Droste, Wiglaf: “Keeping the world in check”, Süddeutsche Zeitung , No. 81, 9./10. April 2005
    “The Jewish country singer, writer and entertainer Kinky Friedman is one of the most entertaining life improvers today. Since he sees it that way too, he is now running for the office of governor of Texas. ”
    Reprinted in: Wiglaf Droste: Kafkas Affe stampft den Blues , Berlin, Bittermann 2006, pp. 39–49, ISBN 3-89320- 098-3 ( table of contents )

swell

  1. ↑ Dan Halpern: “Lone star. Kinky Friedman on the campaign trail " , The New Yorker , 22 August 2005
  2. ↑ Texas Secretary of State: Election Results of the State of Texas 2006 ( Memento of November 17, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ a b Chart sources: US

Web links

Commons : Kinky Friedman  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Friedman, kinky
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Friedman, Richard S.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American country musician, writer, and politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois