KINKY FRIEDMAN at Hugh’s Room, Thursday, June 28. Rating: NNN
Kinky Friedman is calling this his Bi-Polar Tour, and, at 67, the Texan songwriter, comedian, writer, cigar salesman and former politician is indeed a man of many hats. At Hugh’s Room, he spent as much time telling stories and chewing on a cigar as he did singing and playing guitar. (At one point he even interrupted a segue with another segue.)
Friedman’s irreverent, button-pushing humour was on display as he worked through his most popular songs, country tunes about women’s liberation, abortion, Christianity and anti-Semitism (and less incendiary subjects, like sex). Between World War II and Nazi jokes, he threw some well-written jibes at his former political rival, Rick Perry, and his dirty jokes went over well.
He tried to work in a theme about heroes, name-dropping everyone from Van Dyke Parks and Townes Van Zandt to Jesus in the process, but it was clearest in a story he read about his dad from his book Heroes Of A Texas Childhood. Best was Friedman’s slow yodelling on Ride ‘Em Jewboy and his cover of Woody Guthrie’s Pretty Boy Floyd for the encore.
