George Frayne, the man known as "Commander Cody", has passed away at the age of 77. He and his Lost Planet Airmen played a largely unheralded part in the C&W/rock scene of the early 1970's, but they had one huge #7 pop/#51 C&W hit with a revved-up version of the Johnny Bond classic "Hot Rod Lincoln" in May 1972:
"I don't think of myself as a star. I didn't set out to become a star, I set out to become a singer. I would have sung no matter what. The star part is just something that they made up in Hollywood in 1930."--Linda Ronstadt