As confirmed by his son Bill Fries III, country singer C.W. McCall passed away at 93 years old.
Per Fries III (via Rolling Stone), McCall died after a long-standing battle with cancer at hospice care in his Colorado residence last Friday, Apr. 1, 2022.
Who is CW McCall?
Born in November 1928, William Dale Fries Jr. was an advertising executive in the 1970s.
While working at an Omaha ad agency, the Audubon, Iowa native penned created the character of C.W. McCall in 1974 for a television advertising campaign for Old Home Bread which featured a McCall, a truck driver.
Fries then adapted the iconic name, which catapulted him to stardom on the country music scene in the 1970s.
The themes of his song primarily rounded on the spike of "trucker culture" in the 1970s, where long-haul truck drivers used citizens' band radio to relay information about the locations of police officers and transportation.
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CW McCall's Music Career
McCall's advertisement, "Old Home Filler-Up an' Keep on a-Truckin' Café," won a Clio Award and became an instant commercial hit. He then started writing music with Chip Davis, eventually forming the neo-classical group "Mannheim Steamroller."
The advertisement, in which the two penned into a full-length track, appeared in McCall's January 1975 debut album "Wolf Creek Pass." Eventually, the song reached No. 12 on the country charts at the time.
Almost nine months later, he then released the follow-up album "Black Bear Road," which peaked at No. 12 on the US Billboard 200 and atop the US Top Country Albums.
"Black Bear Road" also gave birth to his most popular song, "Convoy." The track received international acclaim as it charted in Australia, Canada, Austria, Germany, Ireland, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
"Convoy" peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country Songs, and the US Cash Box Hot 100.
Most notably, "Convoy" inspired Sam Peckinpah to direct an action film starring Country Music Hall inductee Kris Kristofferson and the late Golden Globe Awardee Ali McGraw.
Later on, "Convoy" took Rolling Stone's No. 98 spot on the publication's list of 100 Greatest Country Songs of All-Time, alluding to the fact that the song contained various elements of social issues at the time of release.
McCall's proceeding releases were received well by the public in varying degrees.
Claiming that the iconic trucker song changed his life "drastically," McCall proceeded to make music until the 2000s, years after his stint as a Mayor in Ouray, Colorado, ended.
McCall is survived by his three children, four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.
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