Kinky Friedman

Waylon’s first words to Kinky:

“Hop in Kink, walking is bad for your image.”
From “Everything’s Bigger in Texas: The Life and Times of Kinky Friedman”

By Mary Lou Sullivan

Here’s the full story:
“Kinky still has fond memories of his first meeting with Waylon.
‘When I first came to Nashville, I was walking in an alley on Music Row,’ Kinky says. ‘Waylon knew who I was-—maybe because he’d seen me with Tompall. Waylon’s driving his black Lincoln Continental down the alley in a cloud of dust, stops, and says, ‘Hop in Kink, walking is bad for your image.’ Very clever, and for a really big star like Waylon, that was pretty cool. Waylon was the first country star I ever saw wink at the audience as if to say, ‘This is so bu****it and I know it. I’ve given the Big Bopper [J. P. Richardson] my seat on the plane and after that this is all gravy:’ Kinky is referring to the plane crash on February 3, 1959, that took the lives of Buddy Holly, Richardson, Richie Valens, and the pilot. Richardson had the flu, so Waylon, who played in Holly’s band, gave up his seat on the plane and traveled by bus.”

“It amused Kinky to say he was the first full-blooded Jew to step on the Grand Ole Opry stage. As the performance started there was stunned silence, there was polite applause, and it stayed that way until it got the point when kinky said, “the statue of liberty” and then they started to applaud, and then when we got to the musical tag, Major Boles had attached American flags to his drumsticks and was waving them proudly, crowd loved it and went wild.”
-Little Jewford-

Pictured from left to right -
Billy Swan
Major Boles
Kinky Friedman
Willie Fong Young
Little Jewford

Happy Birthday Billy Swan
- Team Kinky -

“What happened to the Texas Jewboys? We live in the fine dust of the far horizon, beyond time and geography, where music and dreams play in perfect harmony. Billy Swan wrote “Lover, Please” and “I Can Help” and still lives and makes music in Nashville.”
-From Texas Monthly article “Band of Brothers”