If Stan Fritts looked more like a Nebraska barber than a musician, that might be because he was one. Unsure about the economic stability of the musical trade in the '30s and '40s, he attended college for barbers and worked in the trade whenever gigs dried up. But if it had been up to him to cut all the hair in Nebraska, the hippie era would have started much sooner. Fritts was much too busy with the Korn Kobblers, both a dance band and silly novelty combo that performed nationally between 1938 and 1954. Fritts acted as the frontman for the group although technically there was no real leader. Regardless of the actual heirachy backstage, the fact that Fritts performed many of the group's vocals was reason enough for him to seem to be the leader as far as the audience was concerned.

Fritts started out as a drummer because he was bored; as reported in song folios published at the height of the group's popularity, there wasn't really much to do in his Nebraska hometown except tend the crop of corn, with a "c." Since his earliest assignments as a performer were with his family's band, he might not have actually had a choice in the matter. He later added trombone but never knocked off the drums, his musical doubling adding to the on-stage hysteria of the Korn Kobblers. He also loved to rubdown a washboard, allowing yet another type of corn to be given a position of prominence in data concerning Fritts. According to a biography published by Southern Music, Fritts developed corns on the ends of his fingers as a result of thimbling his oversize washboard, rack-mounted with various honking car horns from around the globe. "Is there anything crazier than that?" the biography asks, indicating that its writers have yet to undertake a serious study of insanity. Any such study would eventually lead back to groups such as the Korn Kobblers, other crazy members of which included Marty Gold, Nels Laakso, Harry Turen, Charles Koenig, and Howard McElroy. The group was formed in the style of the hysterically popular Hoosier Hot Shots during a period when public demand was high for any kind of combination of vaudeville and hillbilly. Fritts and his hayseed pals performed on radio, recordings, stage and in movies. Fritts also performed in the late '30s with Freddie Fisher and the Schnicklefritzers, another "corn" band. A one-man band set-up created by Fritts during his performing career is part of the permanent exhibit at the National Music Museum of the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi