Kinky Friedman, the eccentric nation singer-songwriter whose musings, novels, one-liners and quixotic gubernatorial run made him a folks hero, died at age 79 at his house in Texas.
“Kinky Friedman stepped on a rainbow at his beloved Echo Hill surrounded by household & mates,” a statement on X asserting his loss of life learn. “Kinkster endured super ache & unthinkable loss in recent times however he by no means misplaced his preventing spirit and fast wit. Kinky will dwell on as his books are learn and his songs are sung.”
Friedman’s oddball magnetism and “fearless Texas chutzpah,” as his friend Taj Mahal as soon as described it, in each his writings, stump speeches, songs, and interviews, cemented him as a media darling and a songwriter’s songwriter who befriended a number of presidents (George W. Bush, Invoice Clinton) and regarded Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson a few of his closest mates.
In 2006, Friedman ran a longshot and humorous marketing campaign for governor of Texas, managing to earn 12 % of the vote. “I received my final will and testomony labored out,” Friedman stated in 2014, in certainly one of his favourite catchphrases. “After I die, I’m going to be cremated and the ashes are to be thrown in Rick Perry’s hair.”
Friedman’s finest recognized album, 1973’s Offered American, established the Chicago-born Jewish nation singer as a renegade keen to check limitations, even amongst the outlaw nation crowd of Nelson and Waylon Jennings who had been his nation music contemporaries.
After a collection of cult albums didn’t register commercially, Friedman switched gears and launched into a profitable profession as a novelist and, ultimately, a columnist at Texas Month-to-month, the place his Texanist column launched readers nationwide to his darkish wit and slapstick pathos.
Following his loss of life, Friedman’s property posted an excerpt from certainly one of his columns in 1993, this one about his lifelong devotion to animals: “They are saying while you die and go to heaven all of the canines and cats you’ve ever had in your life come working to satisfy you.”
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