The Corndawg

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• Johnny Fritz

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Before his latest release, the Corndawg (aka Johnny Fritz of Philadelphia) was known exclusively as a musical prankster crooning obscene, country-fried novelty songs like "Is It Too Late to Abort?" But Fritz's talent is no cheap joke. He's a magnetic performer and great songwriter possessing an achingly lonesome, Appalachian falsetto (he's Southern by birth), and it's these qualities that Fritz explores in greater detail on The Liberated North. Perfectly encapsulating his sudden and dramatic quantum leap from white-trash comedian to sophisticated satirist of American rural life is the record's gem, titled "Pregnant Scare." Over a bouncing progression of guitar, banjo, and accordion, the Corndawg becomes a man terrified to come home and learn if he's impregnated his girlfriend (yet again): "But darling, I can't afford another boy to feed/ I hope you ain't got no child inside of you." Then the Corndawg's pained wail adopts an added dimension of desperation and delusion: "I dreamed I saw my son and he was washed up onshore/ Baby, every lie you tell, the waves and the rocks they tear him more and more." Look, I love cheap, locker-room humor, but Fritz's new direction possesses so much more possibility that I can't wait to hear what becomes of it.