Convoy Steamroller

For a brief window in the mid-1970s, CB radio was friggin’ everywhere

It might seem hard to believe now, but CB radio was a pretty big deal back in the 70s. Antennas sprouted from cars and trucks across the US. Strangers talked to each other on public air waves using a variety of colorful handles or phrases like convoy (a group of trucks), alligator (a blown tire), and smokeys (cops). A ratchet jaw was someone who talked too much on the CB. Codes like breaker 1-9 (enter a conversation), 10-9 (repeat) and 10-20 (location) were commonplace. It was basically a coded language all its own. And, boy, was it popular for a while.

In 1958, the FCC established what would later become the Citizens Band. The oil crisis in 1973 led to gas shortages and a nationwide speed limit of 55 MPH. CB radio allowed truckers to communicate with each other, find cheaper gas stations, coordinate blockades, warn each other about weigh stations, share information about who actually had gas to sell, and even avoid speed traps. It was a useful pre-internet network built on short-range radio waves.

There were originally only 23 CB radio channels (truckers use channel 19), but the FCC increased it to a whopping 40 in 1975. As we mentioned in our piece on RF interference, CB’s 23 channels were just being hit with a constant stream of chatter. The price cuts on 23-channel models only made more people buy them, further clogging those original 23 channels. To make a long story short, when the CB modding community started boosting their gear, it caused television interference. In fact, interference (TV and radio) and excess broadcasting power were common FCC complaints surrounding CB radio. Even so, they stopped requiring licenses for it around 1983, according to The New York Times (citing our NYT linking policy), largely because “it turned out that there was no correlation between licensing and obedience to the rules. The bad operators were bad, license or not, and if you took their license, they just came back on the air.”

Pop culture latched onto the CB craze pretty fast. Smokey and the Bandit, Convoy, The Dukes of Hazzard, and B.J. and the Bear starred the CB radio just as much as it did the actual movie and television stars that were in their casts. Even First Lady Betty Ford got in on some CB radio action. 1975 brought the world the famous song “Convoy” by C.W. McCall (more on him in a moment).

As the craze continued, too many people flooded too few channels, conversations would become profane and chaotic, and the fad eventually collapsed. Mobile phones, GPS, and other tech effectively replaced them, although,as someone who grew up in rural Colorado, I can imagine that they’d still be useful in rural areas with poor telephone service or lacking internet access. Plus, they don’t have subscription fees, so that’s a bonus!

This isn’t really a story about C.W. McCall and “Convoy”

Bill Fries worked for an ad agency before finding a successful music career as C.W. McCall. He created a famous series of bread commercials for a product called Old Home Bread. The story goes that Fries created a one-minute spot featuring a trucker character known as C.W. McCall, then hired an actor with the right look, but the voice was all wrong. So, he recorded it himself. Here’s the spot:

It was extremely popular. People loved it and would request it be played on their local station. But it was his work as C.W. McCall that really put Bill Fries on the map. Despite not really being a household name, C.W. McCall did mean something in my family.

When I was a kid, it wasn’t uncommon to hear the sounds of Johnny Cash, Ferlin Husky, Kitty Wells, or Kenny Rogers coming from my dad’s stereo or, on car rides, the radio. Luckily, we also got to hear some Roger Miller, too, but there was one story-telling musician that he seemed to play often: a guy named C.W. McCall. There were a lot of songs about trucking, some about CB Radio, and others about ghost stories or legends.

Before going into the Air Force, my dad wanted to be a long-haul trucker. He grew up in a small, rural Colorado town and lived in extreme poverty. By the time he met my mother, he was living in his truck and trying to survive.

I think C.W. McCall’s words and stories connected to something nostalgic for him. Something that brought back positive memories or provided some measure of happiness. Dad wasn’t exactly a happy guy. He often seemed depressed, didn’t want to do things, procrastinated, and sometimes became very distant. He listened to country music in the car, but almost never when my mother was around.

My father loved westerns, but only watched them by himself. He read Louis L’amour and Zane Grey. They were his favorite authors … but I never knew that until I discovered his collection after he died. I also didn’t know that he owned C.W. McCall’s entire discography, split between vinyl and 8-track tape. We listened to Wolf Creek Pass and Black Bear Road when we were younger, but he never actually played a lot of those albums when we were around.

Personally, I don’t care for most of C.W. McCall’s work. It just isn’t my style, but I’ll revisit it from time-to-time because when I do listen to those songs, it’s like I’m listening with dad.

After he passed, I discovered that my dad owned not one, but seven CB radios. None of them were complete or functioning, but he sure held onto them, and they all showed signs of being worked on at some point. I also found his book on CB lingo, which is how I was finally able to decipher just what the hell C.W. McCall was talking about in most of his songs (I’m mostly kidding here; a lot of it is pretty obvious from context, but finding the little booklet meant something to me).

As for the song’s meaning and references, NPR did a nice write-up on it, and you can find a full breakdown on the Wikipedia page). It was a fascinating look at one of his interests that I never really knew anything about. It also finally clicked as to why he was such a big C.W. McCall fan.

Although he had great success with “Convoy,” the CB Radio craze died down and Fries just stopped recording, retiring the C.W. McCall character. After hanging up his CB Radio mic, he became the mayor of Ouray, CO from 1986 to 1992. Fries never returned to music and lived the rest of his life in Ouray, passing at the age of 93 in April 2022, which, oddly enough, is the same month and year my dad died.

But while C.W. McCall parked his rig for good, his musical partner, Chip Davis, was just getting started.

Traditional 18th-century rock ‘n’ roll: The roots of Mannheim Steamroller

Before they became synonymous with Christmas, Mannheim Steamroller was into some serious Bach ‘n’ Roll. In 1974, Fries’ partner-in-music, Chip Davis, started Mannheim Steamroller with his pal Jackson Berky. Davis and Berky wanted to combine classical and popular techniques in their music. Record labels basically told them it would never happen. Their first release, Fresh Aire, was practically a middle finger to that advice.

It’s definitely an album for classical AND new age music nerds (hey! I resemble that remark!). The song titles themselves (“Prelude,” “Sonata,” and “Interlude”) tell listeners what type of musical form a particular song takes. It’s not exactly Tangerine Dream or Sinfonietta, but it’s a fun listen from time-to-time. Davis launched his own label, American Gramaphone, when other labels didn’t want to release Mannheim Steamroller’s music.

More volumes of Fresh Aire arrived, with the first four focusing on music inspired by the four seasons (they’re subtitled Fall, Winter, Summer, and Spring while retaining their numbering). Later volumes went in a different direction, like covering Greek Myths (Fresh Aire VI, which I highly recommend) and the number seven (Fresh Aire 7, which won a Grammy).

There was a time when someone thought nobody would like this. Can you believe it?

In 1984, Davis wanted to make a Christmas album, but was told it would ruin his career. That turned out to be about as far from accurate as you can get, with 1984’s Christmas selling over five million copies. Take that, music industry!

Over time, Davis and Mannheim Steamroller kept putting out more Christmas tunes, selling cinnamon hot chocolate on their website, became a top-selling Halloween artist as well, and wrote children’s books. Let’s just say Chip Davis is a busy and talented guy who’s won a lot of awards and recognition for his work.

In 1987, Chip Davis helped arrange the music for a new version of Mason Williams’ “Classical Gas,” which is one of the first songs my dad ever asked me to learn on his guitar and play for him. Funny how stuff like that comes around.

But you know what the most bizarre part about all of this is? That Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music is literally everywhere this time of year. It’s in malls, stores, radio stations, whether people realize they’re listening to it or not.