Photo: Kinky Friedman | Richard Samet “Kinky” Friedman (November 1, 1944 – June 27, 2024) was an American singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician, and columnist for Texas Monthly, who styled himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain.
Richard Samet Friedman was born in Chicago on November 1, 1944, to Jewish parents, Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and his wife Minnie (Samet) Friedman. Both of his parents were the children of Russian Jewish immigrants. When Friedman was young, his family moved to the Texas hill country where they opened a summer camp called Echo Hill.
Friedman had an early interest in both pop music and chess; he was chosen at age seven as one of 50 local players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky to play in a simultaneous games tournament in Houston. Reshevsky won all 50 games and Friedman was by far the youngest competitor.
Friedman graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas in 1962. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1966, majoring in psychology. He was in the Plan II Honors program and a member of the Tau Delta Phi fraternity. During his first year, Chinga Chavin gave Friedman the nickname “Kinky” because of his curly hair. Friedman served for two years in the United States Peace Corps, teaching in Borneo, Indonesia[ with John Gross. During his service in the Peace Corps, he met future road manager Dylan Ferrero with whom he worked for the remainder of his life. Friedman lived at Echo Hill Ranch, his family’s summer camp near Kerrville, Texas. He founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, also located near Kerrville. The ranch’s mission is to care for stray, abused and aging animals; more than 1,000 dogs have been saved from animal euthanasia.
Music career
Friedman formed his first band, King Arthur & the Carrots, while he was a student at the University of Texas at Austin. The band, which poked fun at surf music, recorded only one single in 1966 (“Schwinn 24/Beach Party Boo Boo”).
By 1973, Friedman had formed his second band, Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jewboys, which many took to be a play on the name of the famous band Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. In keeping with the band’s satirical nature, each member had a comical name: in addition to Kinky there were Little Jewford, Big Nig, Panama Red, Wichita Culpepper, Sky Cap Adams, Rainbow Colours, and Snakebite Jacobs. More conventionally named roadie Jack Slaughter and road manager Dylan Ferrero rounded out the crew and provided most of the driving of the “tour bus”, a Cadillac with 10-year-old expired license plates and a propensity to break down (but according to Friedman, her talent laid in her ability to stop on a dime and pick up the change).
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Friedman was responsible for the quote “you’ve got to find what you love and let it kill you,” which is often falsely attributed to the poet and novelist Charles Bukowski. Friedman hosted the live concert music television show “Texas Roadhouse Live” around 2011, which aired on over-the-air network television late Saturday night (or midnight Sunday morning) in some Texas markets. On the 2017 album entitled Out of All This Blue, Mike Scott of The Waterboys composed a song called “Kinky’s History Lesson” where the singer attempts to correct Friedman on a number of false statements he has allegedly made.
On June 27, 2024, it was announced that Friedman had died at his home at Echo Hill Ranch in Medina from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 79 years old.
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Read more about Kinky’s life – what a character!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinky_Friedman
Photo: Kinky Friedman funeral Announcement | From his Facebook page
Kinky Friedman, American Singer and Modern Satirist, Dies
