C. W. McCall Singer Of ‘Convoy’ Passed Away At 93
via C. W. McCall - Topic / Youtube
Country singer and adman C.W. McCall, who was best known for his 1975 hit “Convoy,” passed away on Friday, April 1 at the age of 93 after a battling with cancer.
His death was confirmed to the Washington Post newspaper by his son, Bill Fries III, who announced in February that his father was in hospice care for about six months.
Born on November 15, 1928 as William Dale Fries Jr., in Audubon, Iowa, McCall was an advertising executive in the early 1970s. He created the character of C.W. McCall in 1973 for the Old Home Bread while working at an Omaha ad agency.
The ad campaign where Fries portrayed a truck driver won a Clio Award, which led him to record a number of albums filled with humor. “Convoy” became an outlaw trucker anthem and reached No. 1 on the charts in January 1976 and inspired a Sam Peckinpah movie.
He once told Milwaukee DJ Bob Barry:
“I wanted to name the truck driver something that would be easily remembered. A lot of the truckers wore initials on their shirts. We thought it was sort of a country-western sounding track, so that’s where the C.W. came from.”
Aside from “Convoy,” McCall also scored several hit country singles from 1974 to 1978 that included “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep On-a-Truckin’ Cafe,” “Wolf Creek Pass,” “Classified,” “There Won’t Be No Country Music (There Won’t Be No Rock ‘n’ Roll)” and “Roses for Mama.”
Following his success in the music industry, McCall went on to serve as mayor in Ouray, Colo., from 1986-1992. He is survived by his wife of 70 years, Rena Bonnema Fries; three children, Bill Fries III, Mark Fries and Nancy Fries; a sister; four grandchildren; four great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandson.
