C.W. McCall

William Dale Fries Jr. (November 15, 1928 – April 1, 2022) was an American commercial artist who won several Clio Awards for his advertising campaigns. He was also a musician remembered for his character C. W. McCall, a truck-driving country singer that he created for a series of bread commercials while working for an Omaha advertising agency as an art director. Fries performed as McCall in a series of outlaw albums and songs in the 1970s, in collaboration with co-worker Chip Davis who also founded Mannheim Steamroller.

McCall's most successful song was "Convoy", a surprise hit in 1975, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number two in the UK Singles Chart in March 1976. After a successful spell of touring, Fries retired to Ouray, Colorado, where he was elected mayor, serving from 1986 to 1992. The "Convoy" song became an anthem for the Freedom Convoy protests in 2022 and Fries enjoyed this revival before he died of cancer at the age of 93.

McCall was born Billie Dale Fries on November 15, 1928, in Audubon, Iowa, the son of William Dale "Billie" Fries Sr. and Margaret Fries. He later legally changed his name to William Dale Fries, Jr. One of his sons is now Bill Fries III.

His family was musical; Bill Sr., a farm equipment factory foreman by day, performed with his two brothers in The Fries Brothers Band and played the violin while Margaret played the piano and the two played ragtime together at dances. Bill Sr. frequently hauled prefabricated swine barns to customers, which introduced Bill Jr. to the world of trucking. Bill Jr. first performed at the age of three in a local talent contest, singing "Coming ' Round the Mountain" while his mother played the piano. He studied music at school, playing the clarinet and the music of John Philip Sousa and became the drum major for the school's marching band. As a child, he enjoyed listening to country music, but he was even more interested in art, having started copying the cartoon characters of Walt Disney as a child. He went to the Fine Arts School at the University of Iowa where he majored in commercial art and also performed in the university's symphony orchestra, but he had to leave the university after one year because he could not afford to compete with recently returned WWII veterans for jobs to pay tuition, as the many discharged soldiers were going through college on the GI Bill of Rights. He then returned to Audubon to work as a signwriter.

In 1950, he got a job as a commercial artist with KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska. He worked for them for ten years, doing graphic work, lettering and set design. He also supported the local ballet and opera societies, doing work which won an award from the Omaha Artists and Art Directors Club. This attracted the attention of Bozell & Jacobs which was a local advertising agency and they gave him a job as an art director, doubling his salary.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.