Betty Cody obit

Betty Cody, country music legend

A story from 1930s-2014

 

She was not on the list.

Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Rita Cote’s (1921-2014) Franco parents moved to Auburn when she was nine months old. Cote was bilingual, speaking both French and English when she started her radio and recording career at age sixteen. Changing her name to Betty Cody and marrying Hal Lone Pine, Cote’s singing range and distinctive yodel made her a favorite on the US and Canadian radio circuit, and led to a solo RCA recording contract.

Cody’s 1953 single I Found Out More Than You Ever Knew reached number ten on the Billboard country chart. Elvis Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker tried to sign her, but she did not want to leave her children while on tour. Cody chose to put music aside and raise her sons in Lewiston, supporting them with a shoe factory job.

The Maine Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Cody in 1979, noting her as Maine’s most recognized female singer. Cody performed for ten years at Poland Spring Inn in her fifties, recorded Hopeless Woman with her sons Lenny Breau and Denny, Breau and sang often with Denny on stage.

The Canadian-born country music singer had notable singles that include the 1952 RCA releases "Tom Tom Yodel" and "I Found Out More Than You Ever Knew", and "Please Throw Away The Glass" released by RCA in 1954. In 1979, Cody was inducted into the Maine Country Music Hall Of Fame.

After splitting from her husband she gave up her career and worked in a shoe shop in Lewiston, Maine to care for her three younger sons. Betty and Harold eventually divorced. Her eldest son, Lenny Breau, who had lived with his father, later moved to California. Lenny became a noted jazz guitarist. In 1984, Lenny Breau's dead body was found in a swimming pool. The coroner ruled that he was strangled and his death was ruled a murder. The case was never solved. Another son, Denny Breau, also became a professional guitar player, based out of Maine.

Cody later remarried to George Binette, by which marriage she became stepmother to four children. Binette died in 2002.