Last Of The Jewish Cowboys: The Best Of Kinky Friedman
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