Last Of The Jewish Cowboys: The Best Of Kinky Friedman

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With his signature cigar always in hand, Kinky Friedman uses country music as a platform to inform, amuse and outrage his audience. Starting in the early ’70s, Kinky and his band, The Texas Jewboys, broke out of the stifling, often prejudiced, Nashville mold. Last Of The Jewish Cowboys: The Best Of Kinky Friedman, a mixture of live and studio recordings, includes many of his controversial hits, such as �"Asshole From El Paso,�" �"Sold American�" and �"They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore.�"

Never one for censoring himself, Kinky raised eyebrows with �"Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns In The Bed,�" �"Before All Hell Breaks Loose,�" (off the pop album charting release Kinky Friedman) �"Waitret, Please, Waitret�" (to be said with a lisp) and �"The Take-It-Easy Trailer Park.

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Often called the Frank Zappa of country music, Kinky Friedman--like Jimmy Buffett--knows how to poke fun at Nashville and pay homage to it at the same time. This first ever best-of collection oddly omits his "Wild Man from Borneo" and "Rapid City, South Dakota," but still captures the most outrageous of his social commentary (racism, classism, anti-Semitism), as well as his more serious songs ("Sold American," "Ride 'Em, Jewboy") about outcasts sad and solitary. Nothing is too gross (the mucus-lined ode to booger-picking, "Ol' Ben Lucas") or off-limits (the invitation to oral sex--"eatin' ain't cheatin'!"--in "Waitret, Please Waitret"). But no matter if one is offended by such references--or those to bestiality and "wetbacks" in "Asshole from El Paso," the hilarious parody of "Okie from Muskogee"--Friedman's importance in the pantheon cannot be denied. As his horrifying, if jaunty, treatment of the University of Texas sniper ("The Ballad of Charles Whitman") proves, he's a Lone Star throw-back to Lenny Bruce--a serious sociopolitical comic who turns a clear mirror on America, warts and all. --Alanna Nash

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