It was in the newest weeks of 1980 that I found myself in San Francisco, on Broadway no less, making over what was the Hippodrome dinner theater into the newest venue for the Keystone family of nightclubs (Berkeley, Palo Alto, SF). On Grand Opening night, the headliner was Muddy Waters with Kinky Friedman opening for him. It was my guess that most of the blues fans in the audience to see Muddy did not know or care about what this big Texas Jew had to say, let alone know his sense of humor. While strapping on his guitar and tuning, he introduces himself and says…“I just got done writing a jingle for the second largest tampon company in the world…and their motto was… ‘We’re not number one, but we’re right up there.’ “
– – – Tasteless? You bet. Break the ice? Sure did.
Anyway, Kinky did a good set of solid tunes and funny stories and Muddy did his inimitable Muddy thing, sitting on a metal folding chair with his guitar (for over an hour) laying out the real deal Muddyness.
After the show, I found Kinky sitting by himself in his dressing room drinking and toking on a huge cigar, which of course stunk like the dog turd it looked to be. He took a tug off of a bottle, offered it to me and says “HEY, WANNA SLASH OF TEQUILA?” …“Uh, no thanks”, I say politely. “WHADDYA YOU KNOW ABOUT TEQUILA??” …he barks. “CUERVO? “…he says, still holding the stubby square bottle out to me, “…THIS MAKES CUERVO TASTE LIKE CAT PISS.” I took a slug and sat down.
After another slug or a few, I learned a few things from Kinky that night; what, and how good, Herradura Tequila was (and how Bing Crosby and his drinking buddy formed a shell company so they could import it into the states for themselves), and… always drink the best tequila you can get your hands on.
My story. Stickin’ to it.
~jeff cotton
Jive co-founder