Who Is C.W. McCall?

C.W. McCall is not a real person. "C.W. McCall" isn't the name of the group that recorded the music. C.W. McCall is the nom de chanteur of Bill Fries, an advertising man who created the character of C.W. McCall.

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' Cafe;". 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, whose 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.