C. W. McCall
American singer, activist and politician (1928–2022)
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.
Early life
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.
“C. W. McCall” enters the record as american singer, activist and politician (1928–2022). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what McCall, American and singer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“C. W. McCall” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, McCall, American and singer provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1022574. VIAF identifies the subject as 56811630. The Library of Congress control number is n95016372. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928, 2022, 1975 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “C. W. McCall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.