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Event
Commander Cody & His Western Airmen - Rock, Blues, Rockabilly Legend!
Get ready for too much fun!
Commander Cody has started his shows for years with that wild call- "I aint never had too much fun!"
On his way to headline the Sunbanks Music Festival, The Port Angeles Arts Council (PAAC) and Upstage present music legend Commander Cody Friday September 7th at Studio Bob in Port Angeles.
Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen's release, Music from the Heart of Texas, is on Rolling Stone Magazines top 100 albums of all time. As part of the San Francisco rock renaissance, the band changed the course of Rock n Roll, driving a new music revolution of American roots, blues, rockabilly, and country rock. It inspired the Austin music scene, hard driving country rock, western swing, and the return to materials of early century jazz - like jug band and swing. With his humor and boogie woogie keyboards, Commander Cody has been rocking, headlining festivals, and playing clubs ever since.
Great ready to Swing. Their hits include versions of Western swing classics like "Hot Rod Lincoln," "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (That Cigarette)," and "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar," along with the originals that hippies loved like "Stems and Seeds." They'll be playing their classics and new releases as well.
Al Campbell (AllMusic) writes: "Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen were a long-haired, flannel-wearing, good-time party band that got started in the late '60s. What set them apart from the majority of other bands at the time was they had more in common with old Bob Wills records than anything Jimi Hendrix ever recorded. .....They were a damn good bar band and one of the few from that era who could play at both political rallies and the honky tonk down the street. The music Commander Cody and his boys recorded during the hippie era remains timeless."
This is also a fundraiser for PAAC that aims to raise $7,000 to install a projection system and film series for Port Angeles on the Alle Stage at Studio Bob. PAAC will garner all concert profits and ticket purchasers will become instant boosters of the PAAP Film Series Booster Group. The Port Angeles Arts Council is a 501c3 non-profit "dedicated to nurturing the vitality of the arts as an essential ingredient of the quality of life for area residents and visitors. The council is a forum for artists and arts organizations, advocates for arts education at all levels, and serves to facilitate and advise the development of art projects in the public sphere." Contributions may be tax deductive. At this time, PAAC provides its non-profit status for support of worthy community art-related projects in Port Angeles. Opportunities for contributions will be offered online and at the concert.
Artist, musician, and pioneering band leader Commander Cody (aka George Frayne) helped invent a whole new style of music during the early 1970s, a period regarded as the height of rock innovation. Cody and his Lost Plant Airmen were one of the original groups to fuse divergent strains of American Roots Music - stripped down basic rock and roll, rhythm and blues, jazz, bop, country, western swing and rockabilly. They laid the groundwork for retro-revisionist bands like the The Byrds, The Eagles, and Poco. However, they usually rocked harder and Cody is known for his marathon performances. Resisting the overblown pompous trend of the day, they preferred the no-frills, back to basic approach. The band was the precursor to the Austin Texas music scene of the 1980s inspiring bands like The Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band, and Rockabilly groups like The Blasters. In fact, Austins own Asleep at the Wheel first moved to San Francisco under Codys influence and were a satellite of the Lost Planet Airmen in local clubs and bar.
Formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the bands name was inspired by 1950s film serials featuring the character Commando Cody - released under the title Lost Planet Airmen. After playing for several years in local bars, the core members migrated to San Francisco and soon got a recording contract with Paramount Records. After their arrival in San Francisco, the band moved into a house they dubbed Ozone West in Berkeley.
The group released their first album, Lost in the Ozone,in late 1971. Their version of the 1955 song "Hot Rod Lincoln" reached the top ten on the Billboard singles chart in early 1972. A year later, Commander Cody invited western swing revival group Asleep at the Wheel to relocate to the Bay Area. They then bought an old Greyhound bus, fitted it with 12 bunks and began touring. Subsequently, they enlisted steel player Bobby Black and recorded their second album - Hot Licks, Cold Steel and Truckers Favorites.
Their album, Country Casanova, with the Tex Williams swing favorite Smoke, Smoke, Smoke (that Cigarette)" then cracked the country charts. While being booed off the stage in Nashville for their long hair, their music was ahead of its time and heralded that mix of rock and country - Rockabilly, Southern Rock, and Texas Blues - that eventually captured the nation. Next came Live From The Heart of Texas, declared by Rolling Stone as one of the best 100 albums of all time!
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, but the band was not inclined to change its raw-edged style. After appearing in the Roger Corman movie Hollywood Boulevard, Frayne disbanded the group in 1976.
Percussionist Steve Barbuto joined Commander Cody & His Western Airmen in the late 90s. Steve had worked with Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, Avenue Blue - to name a few. Band member Randy Bromwell, on bass, is one of those studio musicians whose been on hundreds of recordings and releases - including Lesley Gore, Ben Orr (of The Cars), and Joe Pesci, any many more. Mark Emerick plays lead guitar and has shared stage with Gregg Allman, The Marshall Tucker Band, Ruth Pointer (the Pointer Sisters), and Dicky Betts.
Commander Cody, George Frayne, is also a renowned fine artist. He received his degree 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, teaching at both the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He's 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.
Show time is 8pm at Studio Bob, 118 1/2 E. Front Street, Port Angeles . Doors open at 6:30pm. Tickets are available online at newupstage.com and also at Harbor Art Gallery on 114 North Laurel, Port Angeles. For more information, visit newupstage.com or call 360 385 2216.
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LocationStudio Bob (View)
118 1/2 Front St
Port Angeles, WA 98362
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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