William Dale Fries Jr., an enterprising Nebraska ad exec who adopted the persona “C.W. McCall” (the “CW” was for Country/Western) and released the #1 crossover hit “Convoy” in 1976, crashed the gate doing 93 this weekend.
It is my belief that an overwhelming majority of white American males of my age group grew up loving the following songs:
- “Convoy” by McCall and future Mannheim Steamroller schlockateur Chip Davis (1975)
- “Ghost Riders in the Sky” by Stan Jones, as recorded by Johnny Cash (1979)
- “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot (1976)
- “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band (1979)
- “Another Brick in the Wall pt. II” by Pink Floyd (1979)
Maybe it’s because he was an ad man, but either McCall tapped into something or created a need for something that became ubiquitous in the country-crossover 70s. CBs, truck journeys, for some reason chimps and, inevitably, truck journeys with CBs and chimps. And here was this made-up cowboy, from the middle of the country with an accent so unlike (and so much deeper than) American Standard, juxtaposed with Davis’s ridiculous Muppety choruses, that the song, particularly masculine like the next three (and having a children’s chorus in common with “Another Brick in the Wall”), really spoke to something developing in us, perhaps our inner Witch of November—snorting fire, beating the Devil in a violin contest, not getting our pudding.
I mention the appeal of this chunk of the 70s in the opening to “Limericks of Loss And Regret.”
This half-decade also saw the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” major releases by Led Zeppelin, The Who, ABBA and, of course, KISS, which, like Santa and John Wayne Gacy, had an exclusive appeal for children.
I grew up far north of Rubber Duck’s demise (I just assume the convoy crashed into the Atlantic rather than pay a toll) but now live in Shakytown. This 6th of June I’ll be raising a glass of—what do truckers toast with?—to the Duck but tonight am thinking fondly of Mr. Fries, who was the pitchman for a different kind of life than the one Benny, Bjorn, Gene, Paul, Pete, Roger, and Bonzo were living.
The words above may or may not have appeared in that transformational unit of literature known as “Limericks of Loss And Regret.”
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ISBNs
LLR paperback: 978-1735343402
LLR eBook: 978-1-7353434-2-6