“They ain’t making Jews like Jesus anymore – They ain’t making carpenters that know what nails are for.” Whether as a newspaper columnist, writer of detective novels, or (in 2006) as a candidate in the gubernatorial election in his home state of Texas, Kinky Friedman has always possessed a neat turn of phrase.
Between flogging his own brand of cigars and tequila, running for Governor, rescuing stray dogs and penning fiction Kinky has certainly kept busy over the years. In fact, the only thing this modern-day renaissance man – part Mark Twain, part Johnny Cash – hasn’t managed at all for almost four decades, is to actually get in the recording studio and make music, which is, of course, how he became Kinky Friedman (of the Texas Jewboys) in the first place. And why I’m talking to him now, at home on his Texan ranch; to ask how he is, and why it’s taken him so long to rediscover his mojo, or should that be “moxie”?
“We’ve had a biblical flood. I got separated from my house, my telephone and my guitar. Sometimes life gets in the way.”
And that was just this morning! “Yes, it has been a long time. It’s been 35 years since I wrote The Loneliest Man I Ever Met with my friend Will Hoover. We were struggling singer-songwriters. But not everyone has been a singer and a politician. I’ve been both. And I can tell you which is the higher calling. The musician!”
So what can we expect from the new album? “Well, The Loneliest Man has been called a lot of things. All of them great. I’ve never made an album that has received such high critical praise. Of course, young people don’t grow up wanting to be a critic! Maybe it’s because everything coming out of Nashville right now sounds like the background to a bad fraternity party. This album is under-produced. It lets you bring your imagination into play. When you hear a song like ‘Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis’ [Tom Waits], you can think while listening to it. Another track, ‘My Shit’s Fucked Up’ [written by the late Warren Zevon following his cancer diagnosis], is a great description of the world today. “
The album even includes an appearance by Little Jewford, one of the original Texas Jewboys. I ask what happened to the others. “Well, two of ’em are dead, but there’s enough alive that we could still put a good band on tour. We just haven’t done it yet.”
After touring The Loneliest Man in the United States, Kinky is bringing his unique sound to London, for one night only. Is it a return he is looking forward to?
“London is a great audience. My curse, and my blessing, is that I’ve not stayed with one thing. I ran for Governor of Texas as an independent in 2006. A race I won, in every place but Texas! Because of this, my audience tends to be more eclectic. You need a genius audience to make a genius performance. In Germany, where I am the thinking man’s David Hasselhof, the shows are selling great. Full of young people.”
Kinky has in fact run for office several times, previously as a Democrat. “But I’m not a Democrat anymore. That’s for sure. And most people who think they are Democrats are not Democrats. Real Democrats are a dying breed. Democrats are not people like Obama and John Kerry. They are people like Barbara Jordan [the first Afro-American Congresswoman from the deep South] and [former Texas Governor] Ann Richards. Even Churchill was an old-time democrat!”
So what does Kinky make of Bernie Sanders? “I like Bernie because I want to see a Jeeeeeew in the White House”, exclaims Friedman, before collapsing into giggles. “If Bernie wins, it’ll be the first time in history a Jewish family has moved into a house a black family has just moved out of!”
How likely does he think this is? “I think Trump and Bernie are the only two uncorrupted candidates running. They won’t win. It’s what George Carlin called the illusion of choice. Everyone thinks we have one. We really don’t. I address this in a new song about ‘A (three-legged) Dog Named Freedom’.”
Is the missing leg significant? “You’ll just have to come and hear me sing the song.”
In all, Kinky is playing 24 near consecutive dates in Europe. “I’m pretty old to be doing that.” Friedman is 71.
Friedman has befriended both presidents George W Bush and Bill Clinton. “In fact, I think I’m the only person to have slept in the White House under three different presidents.”
I can feel a risqué joke coming on but on this occasion Friedman manages to pull back, instead telling me that the greatest American president of modern times was JFK. “He’s the reason I joined the peace corps, and became who I am.”
And then he tells me about a visit he made to Robben Island. “I was told by Tokyo Sexwale that Nelson Mandela was actually a big fan of my music. The prisoners there would do their best to get hold of music, and one of the tapes they had was mine.”
Kinky is clearly amused by the idea that Mandela whiled away his internment listening to such cult country classics as “How Can I Tell You I Love You (When You’re Sitting on My Face)”? Perhaps Mandela preferred the exhortations of
“Ride ’Em Jewboy”, Friedman’s extended (and somewhat unorthodox) tribute to victims of the Holocaust.
A long-time proponent of liberal ideas, including the legalisation of Marijuana and same-sex marriage – Kinky once declared his belief that gays should have the same right to be as miserable as everyone else – Friedman remains something of an anomaly. A straight-talking Jew in a stetson who once campaigned on a “dewussification” of Texas ticket, yet remains opposed to the death penalty, kind of. “I am not anti-death penalty, but I’m damn sure anti-the-wrong-guy-getting-executed. The system is not perfect. Until it’s perfect, let’s do away with the death penalty.”
His five Mexican generals plan to curb illegal immigration (the plan called for giving Mexican officials large sums of money and taking back some every time someone illegally crossed the border into the US) also met with some hostility, yet he warns against building Donald Trump’s wall. “The problem with walls’, he says, “is that they prevent people from getting out as well as from getting in. And a lot of people currently want to get out!”
At 71, Friedman has never written a bestseller, won an election, nor scored a chart hit, although that may be about to change with his latest, heralded release. Yet he has lived his life almost as an adjunct to history, and a seemingly necessary one at that. He has befriended presidents and performed with rock royalty, including Bob Dylan and the recently departed Merle Haggard. “Let me tell you, Merle could write songs like nobody else.”
Are there any compatriots that he regrets not having encountered? “Well, the greatest American of them all was Abraham Lincoln. Did you know Marilyn Monroe kept a picture of him beside her bed? If he’s good enough for Marilyn….”
Before getting back to his guitar, Friedman elicits a promise from me to “come backstage for a bottle of Mexican mouthwash” when he gets to London. I daren’t tell him I prefer Scotch to Tequila. So I’ll be there. Just try to stop me!
The Loneliest Man I Ever Met by Kinky Friedman is out now on Avenue A/Thirty Tigers records. Kinky plays Nell’s Jazz and Blues Club, London on May 24