One-hit wonder C.W. McCall

"C.W. McCall" was a sort of stage name used by Omaha advertising director William Dale Fries, who had created this character as an advertising device. The original C.W. McCall was the character name of a truck driver for a bread company. The radio ads that featured him were so popular, even winning a Clio award, that Fries used the name again when he recorded two albums of country music. The second album, Black Bear Road (1975), contained the song Convoy, which became a sort of truckers' anthem and hit No. 1 in 1976 on both the country and pop charts. Fries' voice was perfect for the song, on which he is a trucker whose CB "handle" is Rubber Duck. At that time, citizens' band radio was a pop culture craze in the United States. In the song, Rubber Duck is part of a 85-truck convoy that defies the "smokies" and the tollbooths as he talks CB jargon with his fellow trucker Pig Pen.

In 1978, Kris Kristofferson starred in a Sam Peckinpah movie, also titled Convoy. Fries gave up music after his one big hit and later became mayor of Ouray, Colorado.