Album Review: The Loneliest Man I Ever Met by Kinky Friedman

Kinky Friedman is back, with his first studio album in 39 years, and a brave change of direction. In the 70s, leading the Texas Jewboys, he caused outrage with his blend of bawdy humour and political comment. Since then he has spent more time writing novels than music, and this mostly sad, varied set shows he is still one of the great country storytellers.

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Kinky Friedman has a well-deserved reputation as the prankster of the Lone Star State's singer/songwriter community, the self-proclaimed "Texas Jewboy" whose bent sense of humor and flexible attitude about good taste made him a cult hero practically guaranteed never to break through to mainstream acceptance. (Friedman ended up enjoying greater popular success as a mystery novelist than as a musician. ) But anyone who has dug deep into Friedman's catalog knows his jokes are smarter than they might seem on the surface, and that along with numbers like "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore" and "Asshole from El Paso," the man has a genuinely thoughtful side.

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Kinky Friedman has a history as an imaginative songwriter and a singer with a limited voice, so it comes as a surprise that the 70-year-old Texan has put out an album of a dozen cover songs on his first studio recording in more than three decades. Okay, so technically Friedman wrote or co-wrote three of the tunes, but it has been so long since he record two of them that he’s basically covering himself and the third—the title track—a tribute to the late, great outlaw Tompall Glaser, sounds just like the classic songs of alcoholic inspired country music of the past. The real surprise is how well the former gubernatorial candidate from the Lone Star state performs the material.

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Given the absurdities of contemporary culture, Kinky Friedman's first new studio recordings in almost 40 years warrants a sly slap in the face from the infamous raconteur and Texas Jewboy. Instead, they're a sentimental gut punch. Friedman's cigar-worn voice and the downbeat, intimate production cut brazenly sincere on opening Willie Nelson duet "Bloody Mary Morning" and a cover of Tom Waits' "A Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis.

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