[3] The group's leader and co-founder was pianist and vocalist George Frayne IV, alias Commander Cody (born July 19, 1944, in Boise, Idaho; died September 26, 2021, in Saratoga Springs, New York).

(About a year later, Commander Cody invited western swing revival group Asleep at the Wheel to relocate to the Bay Area.

[7]) The group released their first album in November 1971, Lost in the Ozone, which yielded its best-known hit, a cover version of the 1955 song "Hot Rod Lincoln", which reached the top ten on the Billboard singles chart in early 1972.

[3] Geoffrey Stokes's 1976 book Star-Making Machinery featured Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen as its primary case study of music industry production and marketing.

Tichy had previously earned a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and became head of the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York.

[8] The following year Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen were inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.

[9] Members of the original group, excepting Frayne, held a 50th anniversary reunion in the San Francisco Bay area in June 2019.

[15] 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.

[17] Influenced by the rowdy barroom country of Ernest Tubb and Ray Price,[18] Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen's style was built on the foundation of country music, which the band fused with boogie woogie, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, Western swing and jazz, which Classic Rock said resulted in "a counter-cultural twist to the Nashville sound".