The late Kinky Friedman, a cigar-smoking novelist, country rock musician, and two-time Texas gubernatorial candidate, had a decidedly idiosyncratic personality. That came across starting with his first album, 1973’s Sold American, which he recorded with his group, the Texas Jewboys.
Black humor, sarcasm, and downright silliness permeate that set. It opens with a song called “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You” that includes the memorable rhyme “Let Saigons be bygones” and verses like this: “We reserve the right to refuse services to you / Your friends are all on welfare / You call yourself a Jew? / You need your ticket and your tie / To zip your prayers on through / We reserve the right to refuse services unto you.”
The same album features a poke at feminists called “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed,” a song that Friedman probably meant about as seriously as the pot-smoking Merle Haggard meant “Okie from Muskogee,” as well as a number about Texas mass murderer Charles Whitman: “There was a rumor / About a tumor / Nestled at the base of his brain / He was sitting up there with his .36 magnum / Laughing wildly as he bagged them / Who are we to say the boy’s insane?.”
Friedman, who had Parkinson’s disease and died last year at age 79, sprinkled more tongue-in-cheek material through more than a dozen subsequent albums, but anyone who heard those releases knows that there was another side to him, too. Starting with the title track of Sold American, he proved capable of first-rate – and serious – ballads. Moreover, satire-free material began to dominate his work during the second half of the last decade, when he issued such excellent albums as The Loneliest Man I Ever Met (2015), Circus of Life (2018), and Resurrection (2019). He wasn’t a particularly prolific songwriter, but perhaps because of the lighter side he displayed in earlier years, he was an underappreciated one.
You’ll find the most recent proof of that on Poet of Motel 6, his posthumously released final album, which is out today. Balancing poignant, melancholy lyrics with lilting, frequently midtempo melodies, the set was produced by musician David Mansfield, who knew Friedman since they both played in Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in 1976. It features contributions from trumpeter Steven Bernstein and accordionist Joel Guzman as well as such artists as Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Rodney Crowell, and Amy Lee Nelson, a daughter of Friedman’s friend Willie Nelson.
The CD, which includes a song called “The Life and Death of a Rodeo Clown,” has little to do with clowning but a lot to do with death. Friedman seems aware that the clock is ticking for him and sad that time has run out for assorted people to whom he’d been close.
The title track pays tribute to the late outlaw country artist Billy Joe Shaver, who shared stages with Friedman on a 2002 Australian tour. (See Live Down Under, released in 2021.) “Kacey Needs a Song,” meanwhile, finds him remembering his girlfriend Kacey Cohen (“the love of my life,” he sings), who died four decades ago in a car crash: “Sometimes I hear her calling in a cold Vancouver dawn / And all I know is Kacey needs a song.” Then there’s “See You Down the Highway,” in which Friedman notes that he’s “gettin’ kinda old” and appears to be bidding farewell to his friends and fans.
Unlike many of his earlier numbers, the ones on Poet of Motel 6 won’t make you laugh, but they might make you shed a tear.
Also Noteworthy
Chris Walz, All I Got and Gone. This is the solo debut from Chicago-based Chris Walz, whose fingerpicking guitar work and penchant for rootsy folk music might remind you of artists like Dave Van Ronk, Doc Watson, and Stefan Grossman. Another good reference point is the late folk singer Patrick Sky. Walz, who has previously recorded with bluegrass bands such as Special Consensus, shows how much you can accomplish with just one guitar and a sonorous voice.
Also helpful is the setlist on this 45-minute, 11-track CD, which features top-tier traditional songs, most of which are at least a century old. Among them are “Alabama Bound,” for which Jelly Roll Morton claimed authorship; “Delia,” which is associated with Blind Willie McTell and many later artists; “See See Rider,” which Walz says he first heard in Big Bill Broonzy’s version; and “Hard Times Come Again No More,” the frequently covered Stephen Foster classic.
Jeff Burger’s website, byjeffburger.com, contains five decades’ worth of music reviews, interviews, and commentary. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters.
