The late singer-songwriter / novelist / Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman was a complicated man, an individual with more depth than many could initially perceive. He was certainly a purveyor of schtick, delivering lines like, “May the God of your choice bless and keep you. I respect him as long as he doesn’t circumcise me anymore.” But Friedman could also be capable of conveying heartfelt emotion in his writing, as demonstrated by a eulogy to his cat Cuddles in a postscript to his novel Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola.
Those with a superficial knowledge of the Kinkster might be surprised to find that he had a sentimental and even sensitive side to his personality. Yes, he was the guy who wrote quasi-novelty songs like “Asshole from El Paso” and “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed.” But he also composed the haunting (despite the title) “Ride ‘em Jewboy,” a meditation on those who died during the Holocaust. Bob Dylan performed the song at the Astrodome, with Ringo Starr on drums, at a 1976 benefit for wrongly convicted boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter.
Friedman’s more serious side is displayed on the album Poet of Motel 6, which was released a few days ago. During the album’s recording, Friedman was suffering the effects of Parkinson’s disease, which left him unable to play the guitar and sometimes caused cognitive difficulties. Friedman succumbed to the disease in June of 2024 and was, as he would put it, “bugled to Jesus.”
You might say that the tone of Kinky Friedman’s last album is elegiac. Or you might say that the record seems to be obsessed with the subject of shuffling off this mortal coil. Friedman realized this, and in fact wanted to call the album The Book of the Dead. Instead, he was persuaded to name it after the record’s first song, a tribute to his friend Billy Joe Shaver.
It is a thoughtful and contemplative Friedman that we encounter here. Several of the album’s songs deal with the death of people in his life. Aside from Shaver, Friedman also writes about his girlfriend Kacey Cohen, who was killed in a car crash in the early ‘80s, and Whitney Walton, a woman who, using the alias “Miranda Grosvenor,” flirted with famous men (including Friedman) over the phone but never actually met them. Other songs are focused on farewells and the passage of time.
Friedman’s health issues led to a somewhat unusual but certainly effective method of recording employed by producer David Mansfield, whom he had known since they crossed paths as members of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour during the ‘70s. “When I came down [to Austin] to work with him, I could tell that he was not going to be able to do a standard tracking session,” Mansfield says. “That was really not in the cards anymore.
“The progression of his disease was such that, on some days, he was the same old Kinky, and on certain days he did have real cognitive problems. I have a long history of being an accompanist, of being able to do duets with people, so I thought that I would get him in the studio, get a wall of glass between us, I play and he sings.
“So I went into the studio with him, zigged when he zagged, threw him a line if he needed it, loosening him up so that, emotionally, he could turn in the best performance.”
“With a lot of his songs, they are straightforward folk / country songs, but there are a lot of musical quirks there,” Mansfield continues. “It was just the way his mind thought. In a different time, as a producer, I probably would have come in there to sand off the rough edges and straighten out some of the quirks. But in this case, that was not an option.
“So I went into the studio with him, zigged when he zagged, threw him a line if he needed it, loosening him up so that, emotionally, he could turn in the best performance. Then, by doing multiple takes and keeping track of where there was an out of tune note or something like that, I put it all together after the fact.”
Once Mansfield accomplished that task, some overdubs were added, including contributions from harmonica ace Mickey Raphael of Willie Nelson’s band. Friedman and Mansfield also lined up some well-known voices to provide harmony vocals.
“We had one day at Arlyn Studios in Austin,” Mansfield says. “Not everybody who did harmony vocals on the record could be there, because some were not local. Rodney Crowell did his in Nashville, and our old friend Steven Soles did his at his home studio in California, but we had Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Rick Trevino and, of course, Amy Nelson who was his dear, dear close friend. So we had a full day of it, and it was wonderful. Kinky could sit there in his black duster with his cigars and hold court while we did the work. It was a wonderful ending to that project.”
When Warren Zevon was recording The Wind, he knew what he would die soon. So did Johnny Cash during the making of American IV. Was that the case with Friedman and Poet of Motel 6? Mansfield doesn’t think so. “I would say definitely not,” he replies. “He was writing a record about loss and relationships and all that kind of stuff, the way that many people his age start to do. Because part of the gig, after you reach your late 70s or early 80s, is that you’re going to a funeral once a week. That’s the life.
“[During the recording] he was talking about the songs he was going to write, the novels that were going to come out. He was looking forward. For all the people that loved Kinky, this is a wonderful goodbye, but it was not conceived that way.”
For more information on Poet of Motel 6, visit blueelan.com.
For more information on Kinky Friedman, visit kinkyfriedman.com.
