FOLKED UP ROCK Set for Bay Street Theater, 8/24

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is pleased to announce a night of FOLKED UP ROCK, featuring Kinky Friedman and Corky Laing performing songs and telling stories, along with other special guests.. This special legacy music event takes place on Monday, August 24 at 8 pm. Tickets are available at the Box Office at 631-725-9500 or online at baystreet.org.

Kinky Friedman wrote and performed satirical country songs during the 1970s and has been hailed as the Frank Zappa of country music. By 1971 he had founded his second band, Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys. In keeping with the group's satirical songs, each member had a deliberately politically incorrect name. Friedman got his break in 1973 thanks to Commander Cody, who contacted Vanguard Music on behalf of the acerbic young performer. That was the year he and his group made their debut album, Sold American, featuring John Hartford and Tompall Glaser. In the mid-'70s, Friedman and his band began touring with Bob Dylan & the Rolling Thunder Revue. In 1976 he made his third album, Lasso From El Paso, featuring Dylan and Eric Clapton. He has written for Rolling Stone and Texas Monthly magazines and, most famously, has become a writer of unique and outrageous mystery novels such as Greenwich Killing Time, A Case of Lone Star, and The Mile High Club. Kinky has also written many acclaimed mystery novels which reached the top of the best seller list in The New York Times.

While Corky Laing is best known as the powerhouse rock drummer, he also created the group Mountain with Felix Pappalardi and Leslie West. His career has lasted well past the super group where he made his name. In 1961, Laing landed a gig with the famous soul doo wop vocal group the Ink Spots, but moved into rock & roll with the band Energy, produced by a young Felix Pappalardi. Laing left Energy in 1969, replacing drummer N.D. Smart and joining electric bass guitarist Pappalardi and guitarist Leslie West in Mountain, who along with Cream and Blue Cheer, became one of the seminal power trios in modern heavy psychedelic rock music. Mountain released three albums in two years on the independent Windfall label and produced the mega-hit "Mississippi Queen," written by Corky. But Pappalardi went on hiatus while Laing and West formed West, Bruce & Laing with former Cream bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, producing two studio albums and a live release for the Polydor label. Mountain re-formed in 1974, issued two more albums, and broke up again. In late 1975, Laing played congas for several tracks on Bo Diddley's all-star album The 20th Anniversary of Rock N' Roll. Mountain again reassembled in 1985 and Laing has a working relationship with them. In 2003, Laing and West produced Nantucket Sleighride & Other Mountain On-The-Road Stories, a historical overview of their time with Mountain and tales of touring. 2007 kept Laing busy, recording Stick It, an audio version of his memoirs with Cory Bruyea. Mountain also turned out a Bob Dylan cover album Masters of War. West continued with a solo career throughout, while Laing has collaborated with John Lennon, Bobby Keyes, Ten Years After, David Rea, Mylon LeFevre, Meat Loaf, Frank Marino, and Mahogany Rush, Cork, Eric Schenkman (ex-Spin Doctors) and bassist Noel Redding, formerly of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Kinky and Corky go back over 30 years performing all over the US. They have a long lasting professional relationship based on "trust and understanding." Kinky doesn't trust Corky and Corky doesn't understand Kinky.

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