1. When and how did you
hear of C.W.
McCall?
The first time that I heard of C.W.
McCall was May
21, 1975, when he appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He
had been invited to talk with Johnny about the Old Home Bread
commercials, which had become a regional phenomenon in the Omaha,
Nebraska area.
2. What song of his did
you
enjoy most?
"Classified." A funny story, and based on a real-life incident. That's
the sort of C.W. McCall song that I like: something with a bit of truth
in it.
3. Beside being a great
story writer
and his unique voice was there something else about Bill
Fries
that caused you to place him above other story writer/singers?
He was eclectic. His songs were not the
usual "love
songs" -- "Rocky Mountain September" is about a Jeep, if you didn't
know that -- and he didn't limit himself to "trucker songs", although
that is what most people think that he recorded. His subjects ranged
from rural life to the great outdoors to American history.
4. Are there any other
singers, song
writers that you could compare to CW McCall?
On the trucking side, Dick Curless and
Red Sovine;
and for the "funny songs", Roger Miller. But when I consider C.W.'s
personal songs, such as "Mountains On My Mind", "Rocky Mountain
September" and "Roy", there's no one with whom I can compare him.
5. Other than Convoy is
there a song
you believe of CW McCall should have hit #1?
"There Won't Be No Country Music (There
Won't Be No
Rock 'N' Roll)". It's the best country protest song that I've ever
heard. An plea to everyone to stop and look at what you're doing to the
environment. Coincidentally, the October 3, 2005 issue of TIME Magazine
arrived today, and the cover story is "Are We Making Hurricanes Worse?"
The idea being that global warming, especially through the burning of
fossil fuels, is causing changes to our weather patterns. If we don't
reduce our energy consumption, we might be causing events which can't
be reversed for years.
6. What was your first
memorabilia
obtained of C.W. McCall?
An autographed 8x10 black-and-white
photo, that he
signed at a one-night stand at the Idaho Falls (Idaho) High School in
February 1977. I was living in Idaho Falls while attending training
classes at a nuclear power facility in Arco. One day I read in the
local paper that he was coming to town, and the high school was four
blocks from my apartment.
7. Was was the
most difficult
memorabilia to obtain?
The autographed copy of the LP of the
soundtrack to
his multimedia slideshow, "San Juan Odyssey". That's because I had to
drive all the way to Ouray, Colorado to get it. Well, getting the LP
wasn't the purpose of the drive; Back in May 2000, me and Alan Chafin
were on our way to Los Angeles to begin "Convoy 2000", and we had asked
Bill if we could stop in at his place for a while. Not only did we meet
him in town, but he invited us up to his place on the mountainside.
8. Is
there still
memorabilia of CW McCall you wish to obtain more than any other?
What I'd really like to have is the
master tapes for
his six albums. Then I'd ask Chip Davis how much he'd charge to release
a set of remastered songs on audio CD. Except for about twenty songs,
taken from the various albums, most of the C.W. McCall songs have never
been released on CD. But I would settle for a copy of the "Rubber Duck"
belt buckle from the cover of the album "Rubber Duck". I haven't yet
discovered who made it.
9. We would all would
love to perform
karaokee of our favorite singers and songs, what CW McCall song would
you try?
I've done "Convoy"; it's on most of the karaoke lists that I've seen. I
would like to do "Classified", though.
10. When you met Bill
Fries
what was your immediate impression and did he express one of you?
Bill was looking pretty good back in
2000, although
a bit older than the photographs that you see on his albums. Most
people probably wouldn't recognize him at first: he doesn't dress in
blue jeans and a Western hat. He looks like a guy who's been living a
long time. But the moment that he spoke, well, that voice was
unmistakeable.
11. When did
you first think
about opening a tribute website to CW McCall?
As the story goes, in the late '70s I
was collecting
the works of C.W. McCall on cassette tape. I was working for the U.S.
Navy at the time, and I couldn't find the space to safely store LPs --
not to mention a turntable. During the '80s, the tapes started wearing
out; but I'd made backups, and continued to play those. Then in 1993, I
was at the Mammoth Music Mart in Skokie, Illinois (an annual record
sale to benefit the ALS Foundation) when I found a copy of the CD _The
Real McCall: An American Storyteller_. I'd never heard of it, and
bought two copies.
The next year, McHenry, Illinois --
where I live --
finally got an Internet Service Provider; and I discover the World Wide
Web. After many hours of browsing the content that was available, and
finding too much interesting stuff, I wondered if there was a site
which had any information on "C.W. McCall". I looked around and I found
a few pages which had the lyrics to "Convoy"; but beyond that, I found
very little useful information about C.W.
I had noticed that the most interesting
sites on the
Web were those which were devoted to unusual topics, and not just
another site out of many that touted the musical group du jour. So I
decided to start a site about C.W. McCall.
My first site was at techren.net;
techren.com was my
"business" site, and I had decided to keep the C.W. pages separate from
it. I began to transcribe the lyrics from the songs on the cassette
tapes which I had, and post them on the site. As I progressed, and my
research into C.W. McCall uncovered more facts, I added sections about
the real C.W., Bill Fries, and about topics related to the songs. I
moved the C.W. McCall pages to techren.com in 2001, since they were now
much of my "business". In 2003, I registered "cw-mccall.com"
(cwmccall.com was taken; I think that it belongs to a dentist), and
shifted my operation to that site. Since then, "C.W. McCall: An
American Legend" -- the full name of the site -- has continued, and I
have an occasionally-published newsletter, "The Legend-News".
Interview
Note: I
actually suggested CW-McCall.com to Ed (The hyphen part anyway)
12. Can you make a top
ten list of
your favorite CW McCall songs?
The songs which Bill wrote are the best. In no particular order,
because I just can't bring myself to rank them:
* "Black Bear Road".
The
pitfalls of off-road travel. The Bear is on my list of roads that one
day I'd like to drive myself.
* "The Silverton".
An old
train that's still running today. Another "gotta-do-it" trip.
* "Convoy".
The trucker's
anthem. Don't ask me about driving from L.A. to the Jersey Shore,
unless you want a long story. I did it once, in 2000. Took five days to
drive and a week to recover from the experience.
* "Oregon Trail."
Now that's
history. I've driven the modern day equivalent of the Oregon Trail,
while following a guide book to the old trail. Fascinating.
* "Old Home Filler-Up
And Keep On
A-Truckin' Cafe". Without this song, there would be no
C.W.
McCall.
* "Glenwood Canyon".
Together
with "There Won't Be No Country Music," this is a cautionary tale of
how man messes with the natural beauty of his world.
Although, he said grudgingly, Interstate
70 through
the Canyon is a good job of integrating a major road with the
surrounding scenery. If you're in the canyon,
but
off the road, you can barely see it.
* "Crispy Critters."
Another
story, based on real life. Sort of. And the inspiration for the
unofficial C.W. McCall fan club. I'm still looking for a silver t-shirt.
* "Aurora Borealis."
I live
in the semi-sticks, where I can still see the stars on an uncloudy
night, except around the edges. There's light pollution out here, too,
but it's not nearly as bad
as it is when you get closer to Chicago. In the big city, you can't see
the sky for the sodium vapor lamps.
* "Riverside Slide."
Scary,
and true. There's a memorial to people who have died in the slide,
which is just south of Ouray, Colorado.
* "Milton",
although Bill
didn't write that one; Ron Agnew did. It's a fanciful tale of a touring
country band.
13. Did you (also) ever
meet Chip
Davis?
Twice. The first time was on May 29,
2000, when Alan
and I were in Omaha on our way west. We stopped at the offices of
American Gramaphone, hoping for a brief visit with Chip; what we got --
when he finally arrived, behind schedule because of a video shoot for a
Mannheim Steamroller song -- was a tour of the whole facility,
conducted by Chip.
I saw him again on March 13, 2003 at St.
Michael's
Church on Cleveland Avenue in Chicago's Old Town district. American
Gramaphone's public relations director, Dan Wieberg, had invited me to
a recording session that Chip was doing for the (then) upcoming album,
American Spirit. It seems that Dan knew about my web site, and figured
that if I was near Chicago -- I'm about 45 miles northwest -- that I
might like to be in on the action. "Of course!" was my reaction. You
can see the results on my page "American Spirit: Chip Davis in Chicago"
<http://www.cw-mccall.com/works/spirit/chicago.shtml>.
Ed.
--
Ed. Floden <email: :techren@cw-mccall.com>
C.W. McCall: An American Legend <http://www.cw-mccall.com>
The World's Original C.W. McCall Web Site!
