Friedman, who plays Philadelphia's World Cafe Live next Sunday, doesn't have a new album and hasn't written a song in decades, but he has a new book, What Would Kinky Do?, and, ever the gracious entertainer, he welcomes autograph-seekers: "I will sign anything but bad legislation," he says, reached by phone at his Echo Hill Ranch in Texas.

His shows tend to feature the classic songs and stage banter he has been honing for years: Friedman is known as a funnyman who doesn't shy away from repeating his best lines.

Friedman first rose to semi-prominence in the 1970s with Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, styling the band's name after Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. He wrote traditional-sounding country songs with provocative or satirical lyrics, such as "Sold American," "We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You" and "Ride 'Em, Jewboy."

But he couldn't find mainstream success in America. So he turned to writing mystery novels starring an amateur detective named Kinky Friedman, writing 28 books since becoming a full-time author.

Then, in 2006, he ran for governor of Texas as an independent, using the slogan "Why the Hell Not?" and received 12 percent of the vote. He is seriously thinking about running again in 2010. This time, though, he'd be a Democrat.

Between the writing and the hustings, Friedman has been an infrequent performer. He still tours Europe every couple of years; after a successful few weeks there this summer, he is playing the East Coast for the first time in a decade.

His physical appearance (cowboy hat, mustache, cigar in mouth) is the same as it was in the '70s. So is his curly hair, the reason for his nickname. He was born Richard Friedman 63 years ago.

Onstage, he gets into character by thickening his Texas accent, warming up the audience with off-color anecdotes and one-liners that he reuses in columns for Texas Monthly and novels.

Interviewing him feels a bit like being in an audience: He uses the same jokes, and although his tone is a bit more intimate, he rarely breaks the fourth wall. Offstage, he calls those reruns "literary echoes." He constantly references Mark Twain, often sounding Twainlike himself. (As Friedman says, "Being funny is a serious thing.")

And he is serious about being funny. "I'm not really a simple kind of guy," he says. "I hate intellectuals, but I am one." He uses the redneck persona to tell sharp truths. "Ride 'Em, Jewboy" is a country ballad that mourns the Holocaust with Western and folk imagery: "So ride, ride 'em, Jewboy / Ride 'em all around the old corral / I'm, I'm with you, boy / If I've got to ride 6 million miles."

Within the humorist is an altruist. "I think it's a real measure of your humanity, what you do when a stray creature crosses your path," says Friedman, who cofounded Utopia Animal Rescue, an animal orphanage next to his ranch.