Friday Night: Kinky Friedman and Carletta Sue Kay at Great American Music Hall
Categories: Over the Weekend
 |
| Wade Grubbs |
| L-R: Jeff "Little Jewford" Shelby, Kinky Friedman, and Washington Ratso |
Carletta Sue Kay
July 30, 2010,
@Great American Music Hall
Better than: Nobody. Friedman is a Jewish Renaissance dude: a singer-songwriter, writer of comedic crime novels, independent politician, cigar seller and aficionado, and animal rescuer.
Kinky Friedman's performance at the Great American may be the first San Francisco show I've attended in forever where audience members were not continually checking their e-mail or using their phones to take photos of the action onstage. It was nice to see the old-timey red-velvet-and-gilt-cherub-decorated hall go unilluminated by swarms of bright little screens. There was a goodly mix of folks, with some country-livin' types from out in the valley alongside amiable-looking bears and more grizzled, sedate couples.
Opener Carletta Sue Kay told high-lonesome stories and put everything into her Weimar cabaret-era singing while her band -- cello, keyboards, acoustic guitar -- sedately built a beautiful noise around her. Kay kept her eyes high, beseeching the balcony. "That's as loud as we get," she promised after the first song. She won over the audience with wittily melancholic songs about being dumped like dogshit in Paris, and how it had ruined the city for her -- "Why not end it all in Innsbruck?" she pleaded wryly.
 |
| Wade Grubbs |
| Carletta Sue Kay (vocals) and band |
 |
| Wade Grubbs |
| Kinky Friedman |
Some of Friedman's one-liners are so old that they've become positively fossilized, but the audience laughed warmly anyway. Friedman said he was 65 now, "but I read at an age 67 level." Scanning the hall, he noted that he was glad there seemed to be no kids in attendance, because "I won't say 'fuck' in front of a C-H-I-L-D." He said his pal Willie Nelson, the "hillbilly Dalai Lama," once advised him, "If you're going to have sex with an animal, make it a horse. That way, if things don't work out, you've always got a ride home."
While Friedman's jokes are funny, his songs are often mournful. "Sold American," from his 1973 debut album of the same name, is about a "faded jaded falling cowboy star/Pawnshops itching for your old guitar" whose Grand Ole Opry days are long behind him. "Just a Nashville Casualty in Life" dealt with another washed-up musician, for whom "most of Music City never sees the world within the song."
He covered Peter La Farge's "Ballad of Ira Hayes," popularized by Johnny Cash, which tells the story of the Pima Indian and Marine who helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima and died young, an alcoholic who couldn't handle his instant fame. Friedman introduced the song with "What's the Native Americans' Thanksgiving prayer? 'Thanks for nothing.'"
 |
| Wade Grubbs |
| Kinky Friedman and band |
He read from his recent collection of essays, Heroes of a Texas Childhood, which includes tributes to the late Governor Ann Richards and columnist and humorist Molly Ivins, "women with cojones." Friedman turned serious and the room fell silent as he read his tribute to his father, Tom, who was a navigator in World War II and founded a children's summer camp on his ranch. Then Little Jewford broke the melancholy mood with a goofy version of "Maple Leaf Rag" and the silliness returned. "Proud to Be an Asshole from El Paso" got everyone singing along, which was a rare un-PC San Francisco moment, considering some of its lyrics: "You walk down the street knee-deep in tacos --ta-ta-ta-tacos! -- and the wetbacks still get twenty cents an hour." The three followed that with "Ride 'Em Jewboy," possibly the only country song ever written about the Holocaust. Friedman hovered at the back of the stage, letting Ratso play out the last strains of the song, then finally lit his cigar and took a hearty drag. "Smoking bans are the work of hall monitors," he observed, before leading his two friends off the stage.
Critic's Notebook
Personal bias: I went a Friedman book-signing at Cody's in Berkeley about five years ago. On shaking his hand, I realized that I was now one degree of separation from George W. Bush, since Friedman was a frequent guest at the White House. The Great Satan! Then I remembered that Friedman is also a great pal of Bill Clinton's, which balanced things out a bit for me.
I also have a talking Kinky Friedman doll from his 2006 gubernatorial run. Some of its soundbites: "As the first Jewish governor of Texas, I'll reduce the speed limit to 54.95" and "I'll sign anything but bad legislation."
Follow us on Twitter @SFAllShookDown
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
