C.W. McCall is alive and kicking at the age of 92 and he's got a connection to Chip Davis of Mannheim Steamroller too!

Out On The YouTube and also original thoughts from inside my brain ^ | June 11, 2021 | Crispy Critters

[SamAdams76]

But before I get into that, I'm still a little perturbed from my Dunkin Donuts drive-through experience earlier today. Now I'm the kind that just likes to get my black coffee in the morning and so I expect to just zip on through at the drive-through, get my black coffee and GO!

But no! I pull into the Dunkin drive-through (good coffee!) with about a half dozen or so of Volvos and Subarus in front of me. All of them with "complicated" orders if you know what I mean.

Nobody in front of me just ordering a black coffee like me. No! They got the sandwiches, the munchkins, the fancy lattes and the strange combination of donuts that people like to buy. They should all take their complicated orders inside!

Good thing I was listening to some good songs on the country radio station.

Speaking of which, I went ahead and checked to see if one of my favorite country singers of all time was still alive and he was indeed. At the age of 92, C.W. McCall (real name Bill Fries) is still out there living and breathing in his orignal hometown of Audubon, Iowa and the world is a better place for it, let me tell you. Hopefully he was not waiting too long this morning for his coffee.

Now everybody knows C.W. McCall for his "Convoy" song which hit number one back in early 1976. You know the one. "Breaker one-nine, this here's the Rubber Duck...Well, we shot the line and we went for broke With a thousand screamin' trucks...and eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse micro-bus." Yes, that song.

Well he put out even a better song than that called Crispy Critters that you can hear at the link I just posted a few words ago. Simply said, the man is a genius and one of the greatest country acts of all time. Right up there with Hank Williams and David Allan Coe.

Here are some sample lyrics from "Crispy Critters":

One day about four or five years ago
We was sittin' at the Conoco station
Kickin' tires, and swattin' flies
And discussin' the State of the Union
When right out in front of the Baptist church
Come a big ol' purple school bus
Had astrological signs upon it
And thirty-five hippies and dogs inside
About half of 'em went for the courthouse lawn
And them dogs commenced on the fireplug
Rest of 'em set there starin' at us
And I says, "Roy, go get your Flit gun"
He says, "Which is the hippies? And which is the dogs?"
I says, "Beats the hell outta me, Roy"
What they was, was a bunch a' them Crispy Critters
And their leader was a space cadet

But did you all know that C.W. McCall got his big break in advertising? Yes, C.W. McCall (Bill Fries) was the Don Draper of Omaha, Nebraska. He was the creative director of the firm Bozell & Jacobs and he created a Clio-Award winning ad campaign for "Old Home Bread."

Here is a vintage Old Home Bread Ad from 1973. Sheer genius. This ad campaign sold a lot of loaves of bread.

Now if you are like me and listen to a lot of Mannheim Steamroller music at Christmas time, well this will really blow your mind. McCall (Fries) worked with a man called Chip Davis. Who would go on to to form Mannheim Steamroller and sell tens of millions of beloved Christmas albums.

In fact, Chip Davis was the co-writer of the hit song "Convoy" and I believe he came up with the line about "Was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June in a Kenworth pulling logs...Cab-over Pete with a reefer on and a Jimmy hauling logs..."

Now that's a far cry from his synthesized version of "Deck The Halls" wouldn't you say?

Now Chip Davis produced most all of C.W. McCall's hits (and he had a passel of them).

Anyway, that's all I have to say in this particular post. You would not go wrong on this Friday night pulling down some C.W. McCall albums off of iTunes (or however you stream) and giving them a listen.

[SaxxonWoods]

Glad to hear he’s still alive, thanks for posting. Road trips during the CB days were a blast.

[Lisbon1940]

Coe’s son Tyler was riffing about “Convoy” and other trucking songs on his latest podcast episode.

[OrangeHoof]

Never cared much for “Convoy” but this McCall tune is hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3ZdQJ4BeXI

[Repeal The 17th]

Wolf Creek Pass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6LzWZYWpOU&list=PL8zvaxzPFuacJWylt2OvLj5a-1k2b6p9Q

Classified
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wmhOFvMiOM&list=PL8zvaxzPFuacJWylt2OvLj5a-1k2b6p9Q

4 Wheel Drive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0461zognANQ&list=PL8zvaxzPFuacJWylt2OvLj5a-1k2b6p9Q

[SamAdams76]

Dick Clark interviews CW McCall

[Big Red Clay]

Checking in from beautiful Gretna Nebraska which is right outside Omaha. Loved Convoy and the other hits by C.W. McCall. Those Old Home commercials are a vivid memory from my childhood in the seventies (and my late uncle Dick worked for old home delivering bread at that time in my small hometown of Beatrice, Nebraska).

I was playing golf with my neighbor last week who is about 20 years my junior in his mid thirties. We were listening to my country playlist and “Wolf Creek Pass” came on. He got quite a laugh out of that song and then “White Knight” by Cledus Maggard came on. I had to explain the whole CB radio/trucker phenomenon to him which he had never heard of and was kind of fascinated with.

Glad to hear Mr. McCall is still with us here in good old Oh-muh-haw. I downloaded a bunch of those songs of his off of iTunes a while back. Great memories!

[a fool in paradise]

CB Radio

The original social networking media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMeFe68vDCc

[Fiji Hill]

he last of the era of the ‘Independent’ truckers. Notice how that industry got wrecked by the government? I’m confident the Unions didn’t help either (join or we’ll bust your head). Used to be anyone with the means could go out; purchase a rig; get whatever load and drive as long as they needed or wanted to, to deliver.

This is my favorite song of the 1960's--the story of an independent trucker who must cope, among other things, with Federal government bureaucrats.

Six Days on he Road--Dave Dudley (1963)

[SamAdams76]

1975 video of Convoy in which the big haired woman at the diner counter is gazing lovingly at CW McCall nearly the entire time.

[daler]

I worked as a deejay at a SD country station back in the mid ‘70s and got a chance to meet and have a coupla cups of coffee with him.

Great guy, good times.

It was a different world back then.

[SamAdams76]

That was a nice film. Had a "newsreel" quality to it even though it was from 1977. I was the same age as the boy who got hit by the green Cadillac and I had the same tube socks too. Those were in style then.

Radio Shack at the time was the high tech place to go for all electronic gadgets.

[SamAdams76]

I can see how those Old Home commercials won all those awards. C.W. McCall was definitely the Don Draper of Oh-muh-haw!

Here's another C.W. McCall add in which Sloan the dog finds himself a canine girlfriend in a black poodle with ribbons in her hair.

Sloan was such a happy dog.

[LibertyWoman]

That is a blast from the past! :)

[Big Red Clay]

Thanks for posting. I don’t remember that commercial with the poodle but I’m sure I saw it some time in the past. The truck had the name of the company that my uncle Dick worked for, Metz Baking on the door. I never noticed that in those commercials back in the day. Everyone in our small town called him “Dick the Bread Man”

[SamAdams76]

Sloan (the dog) was a staple in many of those bread commercials. CW McCall would have an entire song dedicated to Sloan.

CW McCall - Sloan

[bravo whiskey]

Black Bear Road, you don’t have to be crazy to drive this road but it helps.