Let Their Minds Be Blown
posted by Lang'uid Squal'or, a student of transexual arts on March 4, 2003
I have a story that none of you will believe, but it’s absolutely true. Lorn said she’d like to call a town meeting so I could tell the story live and she could watch all your faces drop. This tale will distort your preconceived notions of reality to the breaking point. So let’s begin…
In 1975 a single was released into the unsuspecting pop music world that simultaneously tapped into an underground “grass-roots” movement, and single-handedly created a national craze. The movement/craze: CB radio and trucking; the song: Convoy. This song, recorded by C.W. McCall, was on his second album, Black Bear Road, and briefly propelled him into the American spotlight. McCall never hit the number 1 spot again, though he recorded several more lps. But who was/is he?
C.W. McCall was a character created by an advertising man named Bill Fries, who was working in radio, writing jingles in Omaha in the early 1970s. For one client, a local bakery, he penned a corny, novelty jingle called “The Old Home Filler-Up An’ Keep On Truckin’ Cafe”. This commercial became so popular that the local paper actually ran the broadcast times for the ad! Fries and his jingle-writing partner Chip Davis parlayed this regional popularity into an album (on MGM) called Wolf Creek Pass, in 1974. This and subsequent albums were performed by Fries, Davis, and what were probably some session men, and these sessioners played in the live touring band as well
Fast-forward into the early 1980s, long after the success of Convoy has dried up. Fries quits the music biz and moves to Colorado, and becomes seriously involved in environmental concerns; was even the mayor of Boulder. Meanwhile, Chip Davis, a tech-nerd and audiophile, is experimenting with his own sound, which he records himself and uses to demonstrate audio fidelity equipment. When he tried to sell his album, “Fresh Aire”, to the music labels, they balked, so he created his own label, American Gramaphone. (The McCall records used the AG moniker as their publishing company.) He then created a name for the “band” – largely himself and a few of the McCall session men; Manheim Steamroller. They sold a few records, but their 1984 Christmas album, with its single of Deck the Halls, was a huge hit, and the rest is New Age Music history.
The “band” of session dudes literally became the recording and touring entity Manheim Steamroller. So, essentially, CW McCall became Manheim Steamroller. And the CB Radio/Truckin’ craze became the New Age movement.
A friend of mine who heard an interview with one of them (he didn’t know which one- Fries, Davis, maybe even Jackson Berkley, the keyboard player on all the McCall & Steamroller records) told me they would play their own music (Steamroller music?) before CW McCall came out, and nobody in the audience knew it was the same band in both sets.
In no way does this story make me like CW McCall records any less, in fact I like them a little more! The McCall records are funny, goofy, in a similar way to Roger Miller or Lee Hazlewood, but even on the first lp Fries’ concern for the environment comes out. He writes about pollution in the air, the rivers, the canyons, forests. And the rebellion and anti-authoritarianism of Convoy is totally real, perfectly dovetailing into trucker/redneck/outlaw country sensibility. The prankish element is hilarious, and the end of the story blows my mind. It almost makes me wanna give another listen to Manheim Steamroller...almost.
Let them truckers roll, 10 – 4.