C.W. McCall, the Omaha, Nebraska adman who jumped to country music stardom with 1976’s “Convoy“, died yesterday at the age of 93 after battling cancer.
“Breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck” introduced America to CB Jargon in the mainstream. Selling more than 2 million copies, and inspiring a 1978 movie of the same name starring Kris Kristofferson, would bring “10-4, good buddy” and many more into America’s lexicon.
Born Nov. 15, 1928, in Audubon, Iowa, as William Dale Fries Jr., Fries created the character of C.W. McCall in 1974 while working at an Omaha ad agency. The goal then wasn’t to record radio hits but to sell loaves of bread with country-sounding jingles.
“I wanted to name the truck driver something that would be easily remembered. A lot of the truckers wore initials on their shirts,” he told Milwaukee deejay Bob Barry. “We thought it was sort of a country-western sounding track, so that’s where the C.W. came from.”
The first commercial, “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Café,” proved so popular (it won a Clio Award) that Fries began to write a series of truck-driving songs with Chip Davis, who’d go on to form the neo-classical group Mannheim Steamroller. “Old Home Filler-Up an’ Keep on a-Truckin’ Café” appeared on McCall’s debut album, 1975’s Wolf Creek Pass. The title track hit Number 12 on the country charts and Fries — by now fully transformed into the character of C.W. McCall — set about recording the follow-up.
Black Bear Road arrived in September 1975 and its title track stalled at Number 24. But McCall released another song off the album: “Convoy.” The tale of a caravan of big-rig drivers led by “The Rubber Duck” caught the national consciousness with its vivid cross-country imagery and playful lingo — “Smokies” for the cops, “bear in the air” for a police chopper, “What’s your twenty?” for location, and, of course, “10-4” for “affirmative.” The track spent six weeks atop the country charts and hit No. 1 on the pop survey.
“This here’s the Rubber Duck on the side. We gone, ‘bye, ‘bye”
