Commander Cody
Retaining his stage name, George Frayne had a subsequent solo career, touring and releasing albums from 1977 on under various names including Commander Cody, the Commander Cody Band, Commander Cody and His Modern Day Airmen, and Commander Cody and His Western Airmen.
Frayne is also an artist. He received a bachelor’s 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. He taught at University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and has had his art exhibited at numerous shows. He is 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. He has assembled many old movies to go with the band’s music as shown on his youtube channel. Some of his paintings are oversized, most are medium-sized acrylics and present pop art images from media sources and historic photos. His book, Art Music and Life was released by Qualibre Publications in 2009 and is a mix of his best work and anecdotal comments and related stories. He still does portraits of famous automobiles for the Saratoga Auto Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he currently resides.
George’s brother Chris Frayne is credited with the cover art for the Lost in the Ozone, Sleazy Roadside Stories, Hot Licks, Cold Steel & Truckers’ Favorites, and Country Casanova albums. He shared credit with George for the album cover for Aces High, and designed other album covers in the music industry. Chris Frayne died in 1992 of multiple sclerosis