Customer Reviews

Kinky Friedman

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of my favourite records for nigh on 30 years - what more can I say? I don't like calling songs 'poetry' but Kinky's work is certainly literature - more than his books, anyway!! - in its depth and ambiguity. (I'm talking about the words now - the tunes are just out for a good time.) Half this album is country (check the personnel!) half is good-time music (GREAT production) but the whole combines pathos with subversion.

I bought this record after buying the Kinky Friedman tribute album "Pearls in the Snow." Though it's great to hear other artists doing Kinky's material, as on PEARLS, sometimes it's best to go right to the source. This album is poignant, funny, hip, and just plain cool. I wish I'd heard it years ago. Favorite cuts: They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore, Popeye the Sailor, and Autographs, the last also found on "Pearls", sung by Delbert McClinton. Definitely five stars.

I don't like this album as much as "Sold American" but still thinks it's excellent stuff. I'm not a huge fan of country music but think the Kinkster manages to get just the right blend of tunefulness and humour. It's a shame he isn't better known for his music in the UK, most people here only know him for his crime novels (if they've heard of him at all that is). Keep ridin' 'em, Kinky!!

I listened to this CD and it was amazing. I'm 13, but it is totally rockin. It's the only kind of "country" i like and is totally crazy and strange. I luv it. It's like Dr. Demento with a bit of Devo. I recommend it to ANYONE with a sense of humor!!!

I feel like reviewing the guy rather than just this CD. You don't mind, do you?

TEN LITTLE NEW YORKERS by Kinky Friedman

If you've read any of his novels, any at all, ask yourself how in the heck you describe the guy. It's a matter of sifting through superlatives, knowing they all apply, and hoping you chose the most accurate ones.

Kinky Friedman was a county and western musician who was probably too original for the establishment. Do you remember when Willie Nelson was too innovative for Nashville? A mere wisp of ganja smoke away, Kinky was singing a pro-choice song, and a song called "Homo Erectus," and a big ole pile of songs equally unfriendly to radio airplay. Damn intelligent lyrics.

The only hit to ever come out of Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys was "Lover Please" by Billy Swan, who was formerly a Jewboy. Don Imus listeners have quite probably heard Kinky's "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore."

After that, Kinky tried his hand at writing murder mysteries. The main character is some guy named Kinky Friedman, a former country musician turned amateur detective. This is the nineteenth book in what may well be the most unique and unforgettable series in the history of literature.

Keen insight. Brilliant word play. An honesty and utter disregard for political correctness that most authors only dream of, and that make me hope you Texans elect this guy as your next governor. An unforgettable cast of Village Irregulars and a tip of the ten-gallon hat to Sherlock Holmes. And cats! You'll always laugh and you'll always think.

In April, I wrote: "Kinky Friedman is my favorite novelist. If you've never read him, I suggest ROADKILL, or a trilogy including it, at your local library. After Kinky almost died, his fiction evolved, and you can see that in THE PRISONER OF VANDAM STREET. I haven't had time to read TEN LITTLE NEW YORKERS, which he wrote next and which is in our flat. But now he's also written some essays. The collection, entitled SCUSE ME WHILE I WHIP THIS OUT, is so perceptive and well written that I alternate between (as a reader) genuine appreciation and (as an essayist who'd like to be one of the best) much wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Well, I've read TEN LITTLE NEW YORKERS and will do so again later on. It might be his finest. It's damn sure a contender. Y'all get it. Then, if you live in Texas, vote for a man who inhaled and ain't afraid to tell ya straight.

If you listen to Dont go back to Rockville back to back with Rapid City, South Dakota, then you will know REM must have used that song as a blue print. The songs are both in the same key and lyrically, very similar. Buy this album because Kinky Friedman is a great album that inspires you more with each listen.

The first album, Sold Am, will always remean classic, this one only contains two pearls: Rapid city and Jews like Jesus.