Written by Bill Fries and Chip Davis, this song is a hit in 1975. This is a novelty song inspired by the CB radio craze of the mid-1970s. The story of “Convoy” was told in CB jargon and with a Country and Western (the “C.W.”) twang.

In the song, the truckers form a convoy and go rogue, crashing toll gates and evading cops trying to stop them. The song ends with the convoy riding off into the night. It’s not likely that 85 truckers would circumvent a police effort that has called in the National Guard for support, but Americans are fascinated with law-skirting truckers getting the best of the cops who are after them. You can also think of the song as a prank: many non-truckers had CB radios and monitored communications. Truckers would sometimes mess with these folks by concocting stories.

C.W. McCall is a character created by songwriter Bill Fries. While he displayed musical promise as a child, he was more interested in graphic design. Fries signed on as the art director for an Omaha advertising agency in the early ’60s, and it was there that he created the character C.W. McCall as a selling tool for an area bakery. A trucker for the fictional Old Home Bread company who spent much of his time in a diner called The Old Home Filler-Up-an’-Keep-On-a-Truckin’ Cafe, the McCall character was a huge hit with viewers, and the radio campaign won Fries the advertising industry’s prestigious Clio Award.

Sam Peckinpah made a 1978 movie based on the song starring Kris Kristofferson and Ali MacGraw. By the time the movie was released, however, McCall’s music career was largely over. He released two more albums, but in 1977, McCall turned his back on the music industry to focus on the burgeoning environmental movement and moved to the small town of Ouray, CO. He was elected mayor of the town in 1982. An attempt at a comeback in 1990 proved unsuccessful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVh179oXFao