Commander Cody: I was born on the train going through Boise, Idaho. My mom had me on the way back to Brooklyn. Now, you had to go to Brooklyn, at that time, if you wanted to be, like, a commercial artist. My dad was the guy that put all the nose art on the bombers in the squadron and decided he was going to make a crack at it. He is a really good watercolorist; my mom is a good artist.
Nick Spitzer: So you–let me just interrupt for a second. You were actually born on the train? You were born rolling?
CC: Yeah, they had to stop the train, and take me off the train into, whatever, Mercy Hospital in Boise, Idaho. And then they put me back on the train, and my first recollections are in Brooklyn.
NS: I love that you were born rolling. That’s a great thing, it seems to me.
CC: Nobody seems to know about that. You know, say if I’m down South, and people seem to think that I’m from New York, I always correct them and say, “Well, I’m actually from Idaho,” and that keeps me from getting killed a lot.
[music]
NS: How did you go from being known as George Frayne to Commander Cody?
CC: That was easy to get. I mean, I was sitting around–I was a lifeguard at Jones Beach during the summertimes, when I was a student. For about ten years I did that every summer, and I got to admit it was a total gas and a half. And I had a lifeguard band. We were trying to figure out the name for that lifeguard band, we were down at the Jones Beach Hotel, guzzling as much tequila as we could get our hands on, and looked up on the screen, and there was a guy with a black leather jacket on, with a rocket on the back. It zeros in to the controls; one control says “up-down,” the other control says “fast-slow.” He puts it on “up-fast” and takes off. That’s for me. The name of the movie was the Lost Planet Airmen, and the name of the guy was Commando Cody.
NS: So it was all set up for you, really.
CC: It was all set up. I just fell into it. And that pretty much describes my career in general.
NS: [laughs]
CC: I have always been the Old Commander. I never could figure that out, but now it’s becoming more apparent.
[music]
NS: What gets you to the University of Michigan? Why go out to the Midwest when you’re happy, I suppose, in New York City?
CC: Well, uh, well, I wanted to get away from home, but I didn’t want to go to California. I was accepted at UC-Berkeley, Michigan, and Syracuse.
NS: Tell me a little bit about the emergent music scene at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I mean, we think of Ann Arbor for the blues festival, and, oh, a lot of other great musical things that happen. How did you meld into and come from that scene?
CC: The scene in Detroit – don’t forget, I’m showing up there in 1962 – the scene in Detroit was more of a blues, rock n’ roll scene. Motown hadn’t really been established at that point. I joined a frat band; I even had a sweater with a letter on it. At that same time we were all starting to smoke weed. In 1965, I was the guy that was selling all of the weed at the University of Michigan, and I was stoned out of my mind, fell into the Bayshore Farmer’s Market on Long Island and picked up a Bob Wills album for fifty cents.
NS: [laughs]
CC: I put it on the turntable, and that first time I heard him go “Ah-ha!” I realized he was stoned.
NS: Now, let me ask you this, Commander. How did all this music and pot-smoking affect your grades at the University?
CC: I was on scholarship, all-expenses paid. They paid me to teach, they paid me to do research, I welded things together, painted them red and yellow, and I got a master’s degree in sculpture.
NS: So, you’re a polymath; you could be stoned, playing music, and getting good grades.
CC: And welding bumpers together, all at the same time.
[music]
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