The Legend-News
What We Got Here
A natal anniversary and interview; C.W. McCall’s cousin, A.J. Tucker; the first videos from Ann Pascoe; and a rumor.
Back In Nineteen-Oh-Twenty-Eight
Bill Fries is having another birthday (keep up the good work, Bill!).
If you haven’t already marked the date on your calendar, that would be November 15, this coming Sunday. Bill will be marking 81 years on this planet.
You can send birthday greetings to cw@cw-mccall.com, and we’ll pass them onto Bill. Send snail mail to P.O. Box E, Ouray, Colorado 81427-0589.
But Siriusly, Folks
And if you've got Sirius or XM satellite radio, Bill will be the guest on the Freewheelin’ program with Meredith Ochs and Chris Tsakis, on Monday, November 16, at 12:00 noon Eastern Time.
Freewheelin’ is broadcast on the Road Dog Trucking channel, XM 171 and Sirius 147.
Update! The audio of this interview is available here (mp3, 99 MB, 1 hour 42 minutes). Thanks to Kara O’Connor, the producer of the Freewheelin’ program, for providing the file.
Separated at Birth?
You know the story: Bill Fries — the creative director at the advertising firm of Bozell & Jacobs from 1968 to 1975, working at the Omaha, Nebraska office — created the character of trucker “C.W. McCall” for a series of television commercials for the Old Home Bread brand of the Metz Baking Company of Sioux City, Iowa. History ensued.
But what you didn’t know (and honestly, even I didn’t know, until October 26, when Crispy Critter Walter Pickett informed me) was that the idea of a trucker delivering bread wasn’t used just for Old Home Bread!
Bozell & Jacobs of Dallas, Texas, had Kern’s Bread as a client; Kern’s was a regional brand, headquartered in Murphy, North Carolina. Bozell & Jacobs wanted to see if Bill’s Old Home Bread spots would work for them, so Jim Finlayson (“C.W. McCall” in the Old Home Bread commercials) and Jeannie Capps (“Mavis Davis“) replayed their parts in some new commercials that were filmed especially for Kern’s. Bill wrote new words to the familiar “Old Home Filler-Up and Keep On A-Truckin’ Café” music, changing the “Old Home” references to “Kern’s” and inserting the names of small towns in the Kern’s distribution area, such as Pine Knot, Kentucky and Etowah, Tennessee. “C.W. McCall” was renamed “A.J. Tucker”, and the cafe was rechristened “Mama Kern's Filler-Up and Keep On A-Truckin' Café”. “Mavis” was still “Mavis”.
KnoxNews.com has posted a video of four of the commercials (they’re hosted on YouTube).
Also on YouTube is a video of a Food City commercial announcing that Kern’s Bread is being sold in their stores.
A Little To The Right Of Down Under
Ann Pascoe, a country singer in New Zealand (I have mentioned her before, haven’t I?) has just released her first two videos. On YouTube: “The Land of the Long White Cloud” and “We’ve Got Country Song”.
Rumored To Be Rumored
A certain author visited a certain country singer last weekend, and presented the singer with a draft of a novel which contains the name of the singer. A search for a publisher of that novel will be commencing shortly.
The Legend-News is published randomly by TechRen Enterprises, freakin’ at the freakers’ ball. Copyright 2009 TechRen Enterprises. Send complaints, kudos, suggestions, news and other contributions to Legend-News@cw-mccall.com. “I was the intellectual equivalent of a ninety-eight pound weakling.”
Everything else belongs to its rightful owner.
Special thanks to Bill Fries and Chip Davis for their creations.