Kinky Country

THE HEART AND SOUL of country music has always been its closeness to country people. Since its beginnings among the Scotch-Irish mountaineers and dirt farmers of the rural South almost two centuries ago, country music has borne a uniquely lower-class American stamp. Like jazz, it sprang from the bowels of a transplanted and dispossessed group of people, left largely to their own devices outside the boundaries of the American cultural mainstream, who found self-expression and renewal in their adaptations of their parents' music. And whether outsiders found country music appealing or obnoxious, ingenuous or banal, they never doubted its authenticity; it was nothing more or less than a reflection of the lower-class whites of the South and West who created and sustained it.

Country music is still dominated by white performers like Merle Haggard and Tanya Tucker, who wear their lower-class origins like a spangled suit. But recent years have witnessed the success of equally authentic artists who know the bottom from a different angle. Few white stars rival the popularity or talent of Charley Pride, a black Alabamian, or Jonny Rodriguez, a Texas Chicano, and few have done more to revitalize genuine country music while incorporating some of the more adaptable elements of pop music--strings, pianos, and complex vocal accompaniments. Such artists have strengthened country music while enriching it with a new diversity, and have opened the way for other minorities. So what might have seemed impossible became inevitable, and finally happened: a rawboned Texan with a tall hat, a gunslinger moustache, and a cigar between his clenched teeth swaggered onto the country stage, and the crackers moved over to make room for Kinky Friedman, the first Jewish country music star.

To the doubters, Friedman's first album, Sold American (1973) proved that he was both authentically country and authentically Jewish. It amply demonstrated his ludicrous comic talents, in addition to his considerable musical abilities. Humor is almost impossible to find in country music, and musical talent comparable to Friedman's is only slightly less rare. Those characteristics immediately distinguished Friedman from the general run of country artists, and his first album raised him a notch higher still. Sold American was a unique montage, mixing outrageous humorous songs with serious, sensitive ballads, plus a number. "Ride 'Em Jewboy," that despite its flippant title is a moving statement of Jewish identity.

Friedman's second album, two years in production, was impatiently awaited by those who admire him, and some disappointment is probably unavoidable. It would perhaps be unfair to expect him to equal his first performance, which achieved a level few country artists reach in decades of trying. But even allowing for overly inflated expectations, Kinky Friedman is a disappointing effort.

ITS FAILINGS lie not in performance or technical problems, as in many country records, but in the material itself. As in Sold America, Friedman wrote most of the songs, and his true abilities show up here and there. "Rapid City, South Dakota," a disquieting narrative about a teenage boy who abandons his family and his pregnant girl friend in search of nothing better, has more serious value then almost anything Friedman has done. Flashes of his bizarre humor also appear occasionally, as in "Before All Hell Breaks Loose," an ode to the Apocalypse:

Now I know what the gypsy meant

When he told me I'd never be president

He said, "Adopt a Korean, kill you a moose

Before all hell breaks loose."

You poked fun at my cowboy shoes

Said they looked just like big canoes

Now it's time for the chosen ones to choose

Before all hell breaks loose.

For the most part, though, Friedman's attempts at humor, outrageously funny in his first album, here are less outrageous and much less funny, usually degenerating into clumsy tastelessness or aimless wisecracking. His glorification of Jewish machismo, "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore," is embarrassingly sophomoric. "Somethin's Wrong With the Beaver," a eulogy to Jerry Mathers--supposedly killed in Victnam, actually alive and working as a bank teller in California--wavers between pathos and satire, finally achieving neither. Most of the other songs are simply incoherent or pointless. Where Sold American was absurdly satirical or emotionally poignant this album is strained, inane, and often vulgar.

BUT APART FROM the deficiencies of the material, especially the lyrics, Kinky Friedman glistens technically and musically. The arrangements are complex and calculatedly anarchic, an improvement over the straightforward but unchallenging arrangements of the first album. Friedman has introduced an extensive and highly skilled use of horns and strings, combining them with excellent background vocals. His band, which includes such colorful figures as Snakebite Jacobs, Panama Red, and Little Jewford Shelby, is a model of easy precision and subtlety, rivalling the best in country music. It deserves most of the credit for any value the album has. But the technical proficiency of Friedman and his band cannot rescue this record from the morass of bad taste and banality in which it drowns.

What makes this production especially disappointing is that Kinky Friedman is an artist of uncommon talents, with a creative mind and an emotional range lacking any precedent in country music. His position as country's only Jewish performer, balanced by his thorough familiarity with the roots of country music, makes him potentially invaluable as an imaginative and broadening influence on the industry. But his potential is far from fulfilled in this album, as he doubtless knows. Maybe that's why the jacket shows him burying his face in his hands. At least he has a sense of shame.