Search - Commander Cody :: Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen

The band's second peak

hyperbolium | Earth, USA | 11/04/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The 1970s premier hippy-country-rock-swing band recorded four long players and an unlikely hit (a 1971 cover of Johnny Bond's "Hot Rod Lincoln") before jumping to Warner Brothers for this album. This self titled work represents the peak of the band's studio craft, ably assisted by John Boylan (the man who put The Eagles together), playing, singing, writing and collecting songs across their entire stylistic range.Sad-sack country tales of displaced Okies spin back-to-back with jump blues and trucker tales (a finer reading of Lowell George's "Willin'" would be hard to find - never have "weed, whites and wine" been in more knowing hands), mixing it up with Hawaiian-themed pop and New Orleans R&B that draw on exquisite steel, piano and sax playing. Sausalito's Record Plant gave these tracks a clarity and crispness missing from the band's earlier albums, knitting the disparate material into an amazingly cohesive whole.This is the refined version of the invention they debuted on "Lost in the Ozone," and though the vision may not have been as new, it was still just as powerful. This original lineup would last just two more albums, but before drifting on to separate fortunes, they waxed a legacy of inventive, highly-lovable albums, with this being chief among them. The entire catalog has been spottily reissued on CD, this being the first legitimate domestic issue of this Warner-era LP. A must-have for Cody fans, and anyone who loves brilliantly played eclectic hippy-country-swing-and-rock."

A "Must-Have" for any fan

greybarrel | Santa Fe, NM United States | 10/16/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This album is, in my view, second only to Tales From The Ozone with regard to composition and musicianship. Some of my absolute favorites are on this album. Their version of Lowell George's song, Willin', is the best I've heard (even better than the original by Little Feat). This band was at their peak with this album & Tales From the Ozone (only recently available on CD). This is Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen at their very best."

The Ol' Commander at his prime

A. Moore | Berkeley, CA | 01/04/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I recently saw The Commander Cody Band in an intimate bar setting in Sausalito, CA and it brought back a flood of happy memories of the music he's produced over his long career (which really got off the ground right across the bay in Berkeley in the late 60's). Like most, I used to have this album on vinyl, but came back from the show and ordered a couple of his classics "Tales From the Ozone" and "Lost Planet Airmen" to add to a couple of others of his I already had on CD. In this day of prepackaged groups and formula sounds, the music is altogether refreshing. It's also nostalgic, bringing back memories of a special time in my life. When Airmen was recorded in 1974, George Frayne, a.k.a. Commander Cody, had put together an accomplished group of musicians and his new label, WB, brought a new dimension to their dynamics with state of the art engineering. Each song has a life of its own, but they all seem to blend together perfectly; from the Carribean influenced "Southbound" to the truck drivin' "California Okie" and rockin' boogie of "Don't Let Go" and "Boogie Man Boogie", even the subtle country ballad "Devil and Me" (written by the band) and the classic, "Willin". Besides this exceptional music, I was much relieved that the original 30's era Flash Gordon-esque comic book illustration was still on the cover (I didn't even recognize the one on the Amazon preview)."