Kinky Friedman, the eccentric country singer-songwriter whose musings, novels, one-liners and quixotic gubernatorial run made him a folk hero, died at age 79 at his home in Texas.
“Kinky Friedman stepped on a rainbow at his beloved Echo Hill surrounded by family & friends,” a statement on X announcing his death read. “Kinkster endured tremendous pain & unthinkable loss in recent years but he never lost his fighting spirit and quick wit. Kinky will live on as his books are read and his songs are sung.”
Friedman’s oddball magnetism and “fearless Texas chutzpah,” as his friend Taj Mahal once described it, in both his writings, stump speeches, songs, and interviews, cemented him as a media darling and a songwriter’s songwriter who befriended several presidents (George W. Bush, Bill Clinton) and considered Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson some of his closest friends.
In 2006, Friedman ran a longshot and humorous campaign for governor of Texas, managing to earn 12 percent of the vote. “I got my last will and testament worked out,” Friedman said in 2014, in one of his favorite catchphrases. “When I die, I’m going to be cremated and the ashes are to be thrown in Rick Perry’s hair.”
Friedman’s best known album, 1973’s Sold American, established the Chicago-born Jewish country singer as a renegade willing to test barriers, even amongst the outlaw country crowd of Nelson and Waylon Jennings who were his country music contemporaries.
After a series of cult albums failed to register commercially, Friedman switched gears and embarked on a successful career as a novelist and, eventually, a columnist at Texas Monthly, where his Texanist column introduced readers nationwide to his dark wit and slapstick pathos.
Following his death, Friedman’s estate posted an excerpt from one of his columns in 1993, this one about his lifelong devotion to animals: “They say when you die and go to heaven all the dogs and cats you’ve ever had in your life come running to meet you.”
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