C.W. McCall born 15 November 1928

William Dale Fries, Jr. (born November 15, 1928) is an American singer, activist and politician  best known by his stage name C. W. McCall and for his truck-themed outlaw country songs.

Fries was born November 15, 1928, in Audubon, IA, and while he displayed musical promise as a child, he was more interested in graphic design. While attending the University of Iowa, Fries studied music and played in the school's concert band, but his major was in fine arts, and after graduation he began handling the art chores at an Omaha, NE, television station. After five years there, he was hosting his own program, on which he drew caricatures of celebrities.

In 1972, while working for the Omaha advertising firm of Bozell & Jacobs, Bill Fries created a television campaign for the Old Home Bread brand of the Metz Baking Company. The advertisements told of the adventures of truck driver C.W. McCall, his dog Sloan, and of the truck stop that McCall frequented, The Old Home Café. Bill based the character and his environment on his own upbringing in western Iowa. The commercials were very successful. So successful, that the Des Moines Register 

published the air times of the commercials in the daily television listings.

From those commercials came the first of the C.W. McCall songs, named after the restaurant: “Old Home Fill-er Up An’ Keep On A-Truckin’ Café”. While Bill provided the lyrics to the song and the voice of C.W. McCall, his collaborator Chip Davis wrote the music. Soon C.W.’s first album, Wolf Creek Pass, was released; its title song was a misadventure of a truck with brake failure.

                            

C.W. McCall’s popularity reached its peak in January 1976, when “Convoy” — from his second album, Black Bear Road — reached the number one position on both the pop and country charts of Billboard. It sold over two million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in December 1975. Though McCall is not a one-hit wonder, "Convoy" has since become his signature song.

Like most musical acts, C.W. McCall toured the country, with Bill singing the words of C.W. and the "Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant Boys" playing the music. In reality, the “Boys” were Chip Davis and an eclectic mix of musicians, who spent their non-C.W. McCall time recording albums of Chip’s music. Chip was a pioneer of “New Age” music, and his albums, recorded under the group name of “Mannheim Steamroller”, were also successful. But the fact that Chip Davis was the music behind C.W. McCall was not a well-known fact.

At least three other songs reached Billboard's pop Hot 100, including "Old Home Filler-Up an' Keep on a-Truckin' Cafe", "'Round the World with the Rubber Duck" (a pirate-flavoured sequel to "Convoy"), as well as the environmentally-oriented "There Won't Be No Country Music (There Won't Be No Rock 'n' Roll)". A dozen McCall songs appeared in Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart, including the sentimental "Roses for Mama" (1977).

In 1978, the movie Convoy was released based on the C.W. McCall song. The film starred Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Burt Young and Ernest Borgnine and was directed by Sam Peckinpah. It featured a new version of the song, written specially for the film.

The albums that followed were not as successful as the first two and by 1980 Bill Fries had retired from the music business. In 1986, McCall (William Fries) was elected mayor of the town of Ouray, Colorado, ultimately serving for six years.

The last album to be released was 1990’s The Real McCall: An American Storyteller. This album, the first C.W. McCall recording to be released on audio CD, contained one new song and fifteen re-recordings of songs from the previous albums.

In 2009, McCall was inducted into the Iowa Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. In 2014, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Convoy" #98 on their list of 100 Greatest Country Songs.

Bill Fries lives in Ouray, Colorado with his wife Rena.

(Compiled and edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)