Kinky Friedman, a singer, songwriter, humorist, and sometime politician who "developed an ardent following among alt-country music fans... and whose biting cultural commentary earned him comparisons with Will Rogers and Mark Twain," died June 27 at age 79, the New York Times reported. Friedman wrote 18 books, including novels and essays, eventually selling more than six million copies in the U.S. and in Europe.
In the 1980s, Friedman began writing detective novels, "using the same casual irreverence that he brought to the stage in books like Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned (2001) and God Bless John Wayne (1995)," the Times noted. He also wrote a column for Texas Monthly in the 2000s, "letting his freak flag fly with articles about politics, music and life in rural Texas."
Observing "a surprising earnestness behind his weirdness," the Times wrote that Friedman founded a ranch for rescue animals. He and his sister, Marcie, ran Echo Hill Camp, which they inherited from their parents and which they offered, free of charge, to children of parents killed while serving in the U.S. military.
"The Kinkster was a persona," writer and friend Larry Sloman said. "Richard was one of the most sensitive, warmhearted people in the world."
"Most of his fiction, starting with the 1986 novel Greenwich Killing Time, offered an even more gonzo version of his own life, built around a private detective from Texas, also named Kinky Friedman, who solved oddball crimes around New York," the Times noted. Other titles include Elvis, Jesus and Coca-Cola and The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover.
