Commander Cody at the Highline Ballroom

Born in Boise, Idaho, George Frayne IV grew up in Brooklyn, Queens and finally on Long Island, where as a high school student he took piano lessons. While in college in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he earned pocket money playing keyboards in various bands, including the Amblers, Lorenzo Lightfoot, and the Fantastic Surfing Beavers. In 1966 he took on the moniker Commander Cody and formed his own band, Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, writing their first original songs in a library during a break in finals. The band was among the first to fuse retro sounds and earned a local audience by playing no-frills back-to-basics country, western swing, rockabilly, truckers songs, rock 'n' roll, bop, and jump blues, led by Cody's gravely singing and boogie-woogie piano. A few years into playing Michigan bars, the band disintegrated. In 1969 the core members resuscitated the band by moving to San Francisco, California. Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen performed in Berkeley bars, and a debut album in 1971 cultivated a national audience by yielding a Top 10 cover version of an obscure 1955 song, "Hot Rod Lincoln," in 1972. With no further hits, Cody disbanded the group in 1976 and later performed with various musicians as the Commander Cody Band and Commander Cody and His Modern Day Airmen. Since 1997, Cody has based himself in Saratoga Springs, New York.

More than 50 years since he started playing in bars, Commander Cody is still playing rowdy barroom boogie woogie. Backed by a solid trio (guitarist Mark Emerick, bassist Randy Bramwell and drummer Steve Baruto) at the Highline Ballroom tonight, Cody sang many of his 1970s stoner classics, including "Down to Seeds and Stems Again" and "Lost in the Ozone Again." Now decades after they debuted during rock's most experimental age, the songs were no longer as novel as they were in the 1970s, and played by an ensemble about half the size of the original Airmen, the songs lacked some octane. Nevertheless, the tongue-in-cheek lyrics generated a party atmosphere, and Cody's speedy piano playing and spirited singing were standouts. Cody's fun on stage permeated fluidly into the audience.

Visit Commander Cody at commandercody.com.