Convoy is a sham. The story is fake. C.W. McCall isn’t even a real person. Bill Fries, the man who put the ‘con’ in Convoy, was an advertising executive who came up the trucker persona to sell bread in 1974. Hell, if you weren’t a frequent CB user i.e. a truck driver, you had absolutely no idea what he was stalking about. But the public lapped it up like a kitten in a dairy, sending it to #1 in early 1976 while buying over a million copies of the 45 and kicking the CB craze for all those not driving a Kenworth.
C.W. (‘we play 2 types of music: country & western’) tells the story of he, the Rubber Duck & Pig Pen assembling a convoy of truckers on I-10 to go huntin’ bear, ’bout a mile out of Shakeytown, to avoid pay toll booth fees. They travel across the country 1000 strong, including a couple of hippies and a yellow VW microbus (aka Little Miss Sunshine) to break through a barrier of cops trying to protect the good tax paying folks, such as yourselves. Wait, I sound like the Man. That’s why this tune resonated with everyone weary from a resigned President, inflation and a Vietnam War stalemate. Finally blue-collar truckers got to stick it to Man.
Truth be told I liked the song as a kid but still recognized it as goofy. What I really got into was CB radio. Both my parents had one in their cars and used it as a late 70s version of texting to communicate with each other. My mom’s handle was Blue Bunny since she drove a blue VW Rabbit and my dad’s handle was Fiddlesticks. He must’ve watched too much Hee-Haw. Nothing reminds me more of my childhood than riding around in a carpeted maroon van, filled with cherry tobacco smoke, talking 7-year old smack and pissing off truckers on the CB. Mercy sakes alive – we got ourselves a Wise Ass. Ya copy?
7 Inches of 70s Pop 
Chris S.
/ November 6, 2011Personally, I preferred the story of “Wolf Creek Pass.” Those poor chickens in the top row…
W.B.
/ March 13, 2021You’ve got company there . . . so do I . . .
spinetingler
/ December 6, 2011Great bass-playing on this track, though.
macsnafu
/ December 3, 2014Breaker, breaker, what’s your twenty? Omaha??
😉
W.B.
/ March 13, 2021This also had another dubious distinction: It would be the last Number One single MGM Records would ever have. It had been sold to PolyGram by the movie studio in 1972 and the new owners had a 10-year window to use the MGM Records name – but by early 1976, they decided to move their active pop, country and R&B rosters (besides the pseudonymous Mr. “McCall,” there was also the Osmond clan although their sell-by date had by then expired, and Gloria Gaynor who was three years away from her big hit “I Will Survive”) from the label over to Polydor, reserving the MGM name for soundtracks (the last of which would be for “Poltergeist” in 1982) and compilations of artists like Hank Williams. Only two “new” MGM singles would come out after this – “Love Boat Theme” by Jack Jones (1979) and “I’m Me Again” by Connie Francis (1980).