Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

All Music Guide:

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen were equally adept at stripped-down basic rock & roll, R&B, and gritty country-rock. Commander Cody's country-rock rocked harder than the Eagles or Poco -- essentially, the group was a bar band. Much like English pub rock bands like Brinsley Schwarz and Ducks Deluxe, Commander Cody resisted the overblown and bombastic trends of early-'70s rock, preferring a basic no-frills approach. Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen never had the impact of the British pub rockers, yet their straightforward energy gave their records a distinguishing drive; they could play country, Western swing, rockabilly, and R&B, and it all sounded convincing.

The group originally formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor, MI. The original lineup included Commander Cody himself (born George Frayne IV; piano), John Tichy (lead guitar), Steve Schwartz (guitar), Steve Davis (aka the West Virginia Creeper; bass), and Ralph Mallory (drums). When the group relocated to San Francisco the following year, only Frayne, Bolton, and Tichy made the move; the group's membership had been bolstered to include Billy C. Farlow (vocals, harp), Andy Stein (fiddle, saxophone), guitarist Billy Kirchen, bassist "Buffalo" Bruce Barlow, and drummer Lance Dickerson for their 1971 debut album, Lost in the Ozone.

The following year the group scored a fluke Top Ten hit with "Hot Rod Lincoln," taken from their first album, Lost in the Ozone. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen were never able to capitalize on the single's success, partially because their albums never completely captured their live energy. They continued to release albums until Tichy left the band in 1976. Commander Cody released his first solo album, Midnight Man, in 1977, then he re-formed the group as the Commander Cody Band. The group recorded three albums between 1977 and 1980. In 2009, after a 23-year hiatus, Commander Cody returned to the studio for Dopers, Drunks and Everyday Losers, a collection of new songs and classics from the Cody catalog.

Wikipedia:

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen is an American country rock band founded in 1967. Core members included founder George Frayne IV (alias Commander Cody, born 19 July 1944, Boise City, Idaho, USA) on keyboards & vocals; Billy C. Farlow (b. Decatur, Alabama, USA) on vocals & harmonica; John Tichy (b. St. Louis, Missouri, USA) on guitar & vocals; Bill Kirchen (b. 29 January 1948, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) on lead guitar; Andy Stein (b. 31 August 1948, New York, USA) on saxophone & fiddle; Paul "Buffalo" Bruce Barlow (b. 3 December 1948, Oxnard, California, USA) on bass guitar; Lance Dickerson (b. 15 October 1948, Livonia, Michigan, USA; d.10 November 2003 in Fairfax, CA, U.S) on drums; and Bobby Black on steel guitar.

The band’s style mixed country, rock'n'roll, Western swing, rockabilly, and jump blues together on a foundation of boogie-woogie piano. It was among the first country-rock bands to take its cues less from folk-rock and blugrass and more from barroom country of the Ernest Tubb and Ray Price style. A pioneer in incorporating Western swing into its music, the band became known for marathon live shows.

History [edit]

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with Frayne (b. July 19, 1944 in Boise, Idaho) taking the stage name Commander Cody. The band’s name was inspired by 1950s film serials featuring the character Commando Cody and from a feature version of an earlier serial, King of the Rocket Men, released under the title Lost Planet Airmen.

After playing for several years in local bars, the core members migrated to San Francisco (along with the similar Asleep at the Wheel) and soon got a recording contract with Paramount Records. The group released their first album in late 1971, Lost in the Ozone, which yielded its best-known hit, a version of the Rockabilly Hot Rod Lincoln, which reached the top ten on the Billboard singles chart in early 1972.The band's 1974 live recording, Live from Deep in the Heart of Texas features cover art of armadillos by Jim Franklin. The band released several moderately successful albums through the first half of the 1970s. After appearing in the Roger Corman movie Hollywood Boulevard, Frayne disbanded the group in 1976.

John Tichy subsequently earned a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and became head of the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York,

"Hot Rod Lincoln", the band's most famous recording, was voted a Legendary Michigan Song in 2008. The following year Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen were inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.

Geoffrey Stokes' 1976 book Star-Making Machinery featured Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen as its primary case study of music industry production and marketing. Stokes relates the difficulties the band had recording its first album for Warner Bros. Records. The label wanted a hit album along the lines of the soft country-rock of The Eagles, but the band was not inclined to change its raw-edged style.

George Frayne [edit]

Retaining his stage name of Commander Cody, Frayne had a subsequent solo career, touring and releasing albums from 1977 on. Later some unauthorized Lost Planet Airmen recordings were released in Europe and Australia along with some previously unreleased LPA tracks-some outtakes from existing Paramount and Warner releases. Recent releases have been as "The Commander Cody Band" as well as "Commander Cody and his Modern Day Airmen". In addition to Frayne, current members of the band include Steve Barbuto on drums and Mark Emerick on guitar.

Frayne is also an artist. He received a bachelor's in design from the University of Michigan in 1966 and a master's in Sculpture and Painting from the Rackham School of Graduate Studies of the University of Michigan in 1968. He taught at University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and has had his art exhibited at numerous shows. He is a student of cinematography, and has a video (Two Triple Cheese Side Order of Fries) in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent video archive. Some of his paintings are oversized, most are medium sized acrylics and present pop art images from media sources and historic photos. His book, Art Music and Life was released by Qualibre Publications in 2009 and is a mix of his best work and anecdotal comments and related stories. It has received rave review from NPR as well as other sources as an "uplifting" tome.

George's brother Chris Frayne is credited with the cover art for 'Lost in the Ozone', 'Sleazy Roadside Stories', and 'Hot Licks, Cold Steel & Truckers' Favorites' and "Country Casanova"albums. He shared credit with George for the album cover for Aces High, and designed other album covers in the music industry. He also wrote songs, including "The Letter That Johnny Walker Read" (on Asleep at the Wheel's album Take Me Back to Tulsa) and produced albums such as Comin' Your Way by John Mooney. Chris died in 1992 of multiple sclerosis. As can be discerned by their art as well as their music, both brothers were interested in custom and classic cars. George still does portraits of famous autos for the Saratoga Auto Museum in Saratoga Springs New York, where he currently resides.