Covers of Old Magazines

Who else could have written a country song about the Holocaust ("Ride 'Em Jewboy"), or about a human being kept in a cage as part of a circus ("Wild Man from Borneo")? Outrageous and irreverent but nearly always thought-provoking, Kinky Friedman wrote and performed satirical country songs during the 1970s and has been hailed the Frank Zappa of country music. The son of a University of Texas professor who raised his children on the family ranch, Rio Duckworth, he was born Richard F. Friedman. He studied psychology at Texas and founded his first band while there. However, King Arthur & the Carrots – a group that poked fun at surf music – recorded only one single in 1966. After graduation, Friedman served three years in the Peace Corps; he was stationed in Borneo, where he was an agricultural extension worker.

This double-CD set presents a real conundrum, on a lot of levels. For starters, on its face, 55 songs may well seem like overkill to the casual fan who only knows or remembers (or thinks they only remember) five or six big hits by Paul Revere & the Raiders. And there are more modest single-CD collections to be found on this band that seem less daunting. But as it turns out - for those who give this set a try - Paul Revere & the Raiders did have just enough hits, when coupled with a sufficient number of respected album tracks and B-sides, to sustain a double-CD set. And that goes double for anyone who likes plain old rock & roll - even when this band got ambitious and a little bit progressive and serious, they never lost sight of the value of a great beat and carefully placed vocal and instrumental hooks, and they were always fun…