Biography
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen were an American country rock band founded in 1967. The group's leader and co-founder was pianist and vocalist George Frayne IV, alias Commander Cody (born July 19, 1944, in Boise, Idaho; died September 26, 2021, in Saratoga Springs, New York).
The nucleus of this 70's hippie honky tonk revival group originally formed circa 1964 in Ann Arbor Michigan, but really took off into outer space when they relocated to Berkeley Ca in 1967 where they opened for other popular psychedelic blues rock heavies of the era including Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane & The Doors. The group played an authentic Texas saloon pleasing sound that paid tongue in cheek tribute to lonesome cowboy & pill poppin' trucker songs, as well as popular counter culture pastimes like smuggling cocaine & smoking weed.
The band became known for marathon live shows. Alongside Frayne, the classic lineup was Billy C. Farlow (b. Decatur, Alabama) on vocals and harmonica; John Tichy (b. St. Louis, Missouri) on guitar and vocals; Bill Kirchen (Kirchen was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, June 29, 1948, but grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan) on lead guitar; Andy Stein (b. August 31, 1948, in New York City) on saxophone and fiddle; "Buffalo" Bruce Barlow (b. December 3, 1948, in Oxnard, California) on bass guitar; Lance Dickerson (b. October 15, 1948, in Livonia, Michigan, died November 10, 2003, in Fairfax, California) on drums; and Steve "The West Virginia Creeper" Davis (b. July 18, 1946, in Charleston, West Virginia), followed by Bobby Black, on pedal steel guitar.
Most vocals were handled by harmonica player Billy C Farlow, but Pianist George Frayne adopted the stage persona of Commander Cody.
Within a few years of moving to California they were signed to Paramount Records, who issued three well received and now influential classic 70's country rock albums. Their 2nd single, a cover of an old 1950's country song Hot Rod Lincoln became a big hit in 1971 and sold nearly a million copies. At the peak of their popularity in 1974, they moved onto the more artistically open minded Warner Brothers label. The group toured extensively, and were amongst the most popular live rock groups of their day, directly influencing the burgeoning British Pub Rock scene.
You can also see Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen or Commander Cody on Last.fm.
Full Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander_Cody_and_His_Lost_Planet_Airmen
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
