Kinky Friedman - Circus of Life '2018

Tracks list

Tracklist
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01. A Dog Named Freedom
02. Copper Love
03. Jesus in Pajamas
04. Circus of Life
05. Autographs in the Rain (Song to Willie)
06. Back to Grace
07. Sister Sarah
08. Song About You
09. Spitfire
10. Me & My Guitar
11. Zoey
12. Sayin Goodbye

Who else could have written a country song about the Holocaust (Ride Em Jewboy),
or about a human being kept in a cage as part of a circus (Wild Man from
Borneo)? Outrageous and irreverent but nearly always thought-provoking, Kinky
Friedman wrote and performed satirical country songs during the 1970s and has
been hailed the Frank Zappa of country music. The son of a University of Texas
professor who raised his children on the family ranch, Rio Duckworth, he was
born Richard F. Friedman. He studied psychology at Texas and founded his first
band while there. However, King Arthur & the Carrots -- a group that poked fun
at surf music -- recorded only one single in 1966. After graduation, Friedman
served three years in the Peace Corps; he was stationed in Borneo, where he was
an agricultural extension worker.

By 1971 he had founded his second band, Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys. In
keeping with the groups satirical songs, each member had a deliberately
politically incorrect name: they called themselves Little Jewford, Big Nig,
Panama Red, Rainbow Colors, and Snakebite Jacobs. Friedman got his break in 1973
thanks to Commander Cody, who contacted Vanguard Music on behalf of the acerbic
young performer. That was the year he and his group made their debut album, Sold
American, featuring John Hartford and Tompall Glaser. The title track, a bitter
tale of a forgotten country singer dying an alcoholic death, barely made it onto
the charts, but Friedman did attract enough attention to be invited to the Grand
Ole Opry. In 1974, he recorded an eponymously titled album for ABC Records.
Produced by Los Angeles pop helmsman Steve Barri, the album dissolved whatever
pure country listenership Friedman might have had but delighted his growing core
of fans with satirical pieces such as his response to anti-Semitism, They Aint
Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore. Along with the satires, Friedman offered quieter
sketches of American hard luck such as Rapid City, South Dakota. In the mid-70s,
Friedman and his band began touring with Bob Dylan & the Rolling Thunder Revue.
In 1976 he made his third album, Lasso from El Paso, featuring Dylan and Eric
Clapton. The Texas Jewboys disbanded three years later, and Friedman moved to
New York, where he often appeared at the Lone Star Cafe. In 1983, he released
Under the Double Ego for Sunrise Records.

After that, Friedman turned primarily toward writing, although he continued to
make occasional nightclub appearances. He has written for Rolling Stone and
Texas Monthly magazines and, most famously, has become a writer of unique and
outrageous mystery novels such as Greenwich Killing Time, A Case of Lone Star,
and The Mile High Club. Equal parts whimsy and metaphysics, the books blur
fiction and reality. They feature a Jewish country singer turned Greenwich
Village private eye named Kinky Friedman, who sometimes returns to his native
Texas; other characters are drawn from Friedmans circle of friends in both New
York and Texas. Many of Friedmans songs of the 70s and early 80s were collected
on two CD compilations, Old Testaments & New Revelations (1994) and From One
Good American to Another (1995). In 1999, the likes of Willie Nelson, Tom Waits,
and Lyle Lovett covered Friedmans music on the tribute album Pearls in the Snow:
The Songs of Kinky Friedman, and a second tribute volume was planned. In 2003
Friedman appeared in a nude, cigar-smoking triplicate on the cover of the Dallas
Observer magazine, in a parody of the Dixie Chicks nude Entertainment Weekly
pose of that year. Vanguard released a 30th anniversary edition of Sold American
(which included a couple of bonus tracks) in 2003. A previously unreleased 1973
live studio concert called Mayhem Aforethought appeared in June of 2005,
followed by the compilation They Aint Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore later that
October. An Austin City Limits appearance from 1975 that was deemed unfit to air
finally saw the light of day thanks to New West Records 2007 release of Live
from Austin, TX. In 2015, Friedman returned with his first proper studio album
since 1976s landmark Lasso From El Paso. Released by Avenue A Records, The
Loneliest Man I Ever Met features a number of new originals, along with covers
by Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson, who also guest on the
album.

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