Kinky Friedman (RIP) Talks Bob Dylan Collabs from Rolling Thunder '76 to a Chabad Telethon
Plus 3am calls from Willie Nelson and playing chess in Mexico with Dennis Hopper
Well, shit. Just a few hours ago, I celebrated my book’s one-year anniversary by sharing the Fred Tackett interview. Now I’m unexpectedly sharing another one almost immediately after, but the reason is much less celebratory.
Kinky Friedman passed away yesterday at the age of 79. The Twitter post announcing the sad news this morning read:
Kinky Friedman stepped on a rainbow at his beloved Echo Hill surrounded by family & friends. 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.
I spoke to Friedman in September 2022. Beforehand, his assistant told me he hoped I’d catch him on a good day. I think I did. Kinky was as boisterous and rowdy as his reputation, telling yarns and going off on wild tangents (I remember this one took an extra bit of editing to make it flow okay).
I hope I won’t have to do this again anytime soon but, like I did with Dickey Betts—another one-of-a-kind character gone too soon—I thought I’d made it available here for everyone to enjoy while remembering Kinky.
Musician, raconteur, and all-around rabble-rouser Kinky Friedman replaced Ramblin’ Jack Elliott on the second leg of the Rolling Thunder tour. This wasn’t his first interaction with Dylan, but it might have been the first when they both were sober. Dylan apparently appreciated Kinky’s brand of Southern satire, inviting Friedman to regale his audience with songs like “Asshole from El Paso” and “Ride ‘Em Jewboy.”
In a wonderfully rambling and discursive conversation, Friedman told me all about his (mis)adventures on the road with the Rolling Thunder Revue and beyond, from playing chess in Mexico with Dylan and Dennis Hopper to dueting with Dylan on a shambolic public-access Chabad telethon in the ‘90s. Plus, a few stories about his good friend (and occasional Rolling Thunder participant) Willie Nelson.
Tell me about the first time you met Dylan.
I got instructions to meet at Roger McGuinn’s house. When I came in the door, Kris Kristofferson was there. Kris was pretty wired and inspired at the time. There was an obvious groupie type with Kris. Kris said, “Kinky?” The girl and I both said, “Yes.”
But the highlight of the party for me was in the next room. I walked in and Bob Dylan was absolutely hammered, on his back on the kitchen floor, singing “Ride ‘Em Jewboy.” That’s the first time I realized he knew my song. He did a pretty serviceable version of it.
You officially joined Rolling Thunder in 1976, but I know you were around for a bit of 1975. How did you join the tour when you were just along for the ride, before you actually started performing?
Bob welcomed me aboard somewhere in New England. Connecticut, I think. That was one of those shows that he did without promotion, which is one of the most remarkable things about that tour. There was absolutely no promotion through radio or any other means. All word of mouth and karma. Almost every show was sold out using that method, which was incredible. For whoever’s playing. If Jesus Christ was there, he’d have trouble drawing.
Bob opened the evening by saying, “Is anybody here from Texas?” In the audience, there is not a soul wearing any cowboy paraphernalia except me. Ratso leans over and said, “He’s talking about you, man! He’s sending this out to you.” I guess you’d call that some kind of passing in the night.
After that, I would come up and hang out sometimes with the shows. Then Bob asked me if I’d be on the second swing in the South. That tour was terrific. It’s like you’re wrapped in a cocoon and nothing can hurt you. All you got to do is be on the same stage with somebody that’s drawing seven zillion people. It’s easy. You’re on, and suddenly people are cheering. You tend to forget, “Wait, that’s not for me.”
Those shows went very well. The crowds particularly liked “Proud to be an Asshole from El Paso,” “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore,” and “Get Your Biscuits in The Oven and Your Buns in the Bed.”
The funny ones cut through, huh?
That’s right. That’s what they wanted. Sometimes a light hand on the tiller works really well. I thought for a moment that I was going to lose my job because they were laughing so hard. I think Bob had not expected that.
It wasn’t long after that that Bob bought me this Jesus coat, with spangles and all kinds of stuff on. During a thoughtless moment, I gave it away to be sold. It’s probably worth a small fortune. I heard it was in the Hard Rock Cafe in Israel.
What did the coat look like?
It had a profile of Jesus on each lapel. It had rainbows and palm trees. The guy that made it, Manuel [Cuevas, A Mexican fashion designer known for flashy jackets who worked with Nudie Cohn], said that the guy who originally ordered it never came back to pick it up.
That’s one of my few regrets in life, not hanging onto the Bob Dylan’s Jesus coat. Bob was in a little bit of a snit about it, too. He thought selling it was a big mistake. It was worth so much more both spiritually and financially than I let it go for. But then again, it’s such an elaborate coat that it kind of steals the show from the artist. Only a few people have the pawn-shop balls to wear it.
Before the full '76 tour kicks off, what do you remember about that big benefit show at the Houston Astrodome?
In the dressing room, there was a rivalry going on. The only two people that seemed to be friendly that would talk to each other were Bobby Neuwirth and me. The others kept to themselves. What happened was that they had to call in Willie as a fireman to bail out Bob with the number of people in the crowd.
The Astrodome is the opposite of the earlier shows like Connecticut with no publicity and sell the place out. Now you’re playing a giant stadium. It’s hard to fill that thing. You might need Willie.
It would be Bob’s preference to play small shows, not to have security men wrapped around him, just to do what he really does best. Bob has argued the point that the shows change terribly. You don’t get anything like what you would if 25 people were watching. But the record company would never allow that.
I know that he felt that playing for huge crowds was copping out. It was so easy to do. They were just sheep. They were just following the leader. It was very different from if you got a half a house. He said that that’s who the real man is, who can fucking give a great performance when half the seats are empty.
His recent shows are humorous. He plays only the piano. When he finishes the song, he turns around and away from the audience, toddles toward the back of the stage without acknowledging that anybody is in the hall but him. He looks, for all the world, like an old Jewish man on a beach, toddling along at his own pace.
Of course, being in nature a really stubborn Jewish guy, Bob chooses not to do his popular stuff. I’m the kind of guy that loves almost all of his old stuff, and he won’t play that to save his soul. That’s his response to the audience, all new material. If it’s not, it’s stuff that very few people know except super Dylan fans. What the hell? I mean, it’s his show.
He’s also a pretty funny guy off-stage. There’s a time Bob and me and Dennis Hopper were going to Yelapa [Mexico] on vacation along with Louie Kemp, Bob’s close friend. On the plane, there was no first-class or anything like that. The young girl seated next to Bob could not believe she was sitting next to Bob Dylan. She said, “I can’t believe it!” Bob says, “Pinch yourself.”
I did win a couple of hundred bucks for Bob at chess. In the marketplace, there was a big chess tournament. Bob put in $200 — I was wearing my Jesus coat, by the way — to back me against the Mexican champ, and I beat him.
That’s a high moment in life. Bob put some action in it and was rewarded, and so was Louie. Dennis Hopper, I think, laid back. He was a wiser person in a lot of ways. A very soulful man, Dennis, but then it’s hard to get more soulful than Bob. I don’t know if being soulful is the point of things. Probably not. Probably a waste of time. It’s like Mozart in the gutter.
We’ve converted our ranch into a camp for kids who have lost their parents in the military. Gold Star families. The first session was two years ago. There was this big guy working on a hot water heater. I told him I just wanted to thank him for all the help volunteering. The guy said, “I’m doing it for Jesus.” I told him, “Well, I’m doing it for Moses.”
I read a reference to a barbecue that the Rolling Thunder crew did at your parents’ house. Was that this same place?
No, that was our home in Northwest Austin. Bob came to that thing. Boy, there were some really odd celebrity types at that, none of which leap to mind. Bob and Joni Mitchell, I’m pretty sure I caught them hosing in my little sister’s bedroom. I haven’t really confronted Bob about that, but there’s no reason not to be doing that. Somebody ought to be hosing somebody.
Really, I’m very high on Dennis Hopper, and on Bob and Willie. These guys have been through a lot. People think it’s easy to do this, but it’s not. At best, it’s reinventing yourself every five minutes. At worst, people get tired of you. They want you to be different than they expected. You’ve just got to keep going. If you lay out for a period of time that’s too long, you’ll never get it back.
Willie is coming up on 90 years old.
It’s incredible. Willie is an ironman. Very hard to stop him.
Willie had some real sage advice. He called me one night at three o’clock in the morning. He said, “What are you doing, Kink? I said, “I’m watching Matlock.” Willie said, “Well, turn it off, man. It’s bad karma. It’s a complete waste of time.” He told me I should start writing again. So I followed his advice. I turned it off, and I wrote about 12 songs in a very short period of time.
I called Willie and told him that I had done that. I said, “Willie, how are you doing? I understand there’s some rumors about some health issues.” Willie said, “You know, it’s a little up and a little down.” Then he said, “By the way Kinky, what channel is Matlock on?”
Willie is a natural comedian. When he’ll call, he speaks in a very soft voice. When he says, “Hey, Kinky,” I say, “Yeah, who is this?” “It’s Willie.” “Who?” “It’s Willie. You remember me. [singing] ‘On the road again…’”
Bob is too. Bob is just— he’s a shy little booger. Willie is not, but they both contributed incalculably to the music and the memories of lots of people. Bob has always been very kind to me.
One other thing I wanted to ask you about was this video of you two playing this TV telethon for Chabad in 1991. You’re singing “Sold American” and Bob’s wearing these giant sunglasses, a blue windbreaker, and the traditional tassels [tzitzit], and is accompanying you, sort of, on guitar.
They asked us to do it. Bob had his yarmulke on his head. He was insisting on doing “Proud to be an Asshole from El Paso.” Which probably would’ve had a bigger bang for the buck, I think. But we did “Sold American.”
Why didn’t you do “Asshole”? Your choice or the TV network’s?
It was my worry that it would in some way not be cool for me and Bob to do. It would’ve worked out; Bob was right on that one: “Go on and do the damn thing.” But I didn’t. It was just like the Jesus coat. Once you’ve made a spiritual error, it’s very hard to get it back.
Was the plan at one point for Bob to sing? There’s a microphone set up in front of him, but he never goes near it. It’s mostly random guitar licks.
If you notice, his performance was spotty, but it was funny as hell, actually. Most of the crowd was fervent Orthodox Jews, so they wouldn’t have known if Bob were playing the ukulele. I wish we had done “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore” and a few like that, that may have gotten through to the audience a little more.
What do you think of Bob as a guitar player?
He hasn’t made the strides that Willie has. Willie has really developed. Both of them, though, have got really fine musicians. Me, not being a fine musician, I know one when I see one. Willie says, “Kinky thinks he’s a guitar player, but he’s not really a guitar player.”
At their ages, for both of them to do this is really great. I’m 77 years old, though I read at the 79-year-old level. These guys, I look up to them for wisdom and advice. I got a lot out of being around both of them. I hope to see them soon down the highway.
Rest in peace, Kinky. Here’s a taste of Kinky live on the Rolling Thunder Revue, Mobile, AL, April 29 (full tape here):
“Rock & Roll Across the USA”:
“Dear Abbie”:
“Asshole from El Paso” (is the most ribald song ever sung onstage at a Dylan concert?):
Sad news, but a great interview - thanks for sharing.
Thank you Ray. Fun guy. Rest easy. !