Singer Bill Fries, best known for the 1970s Trucking Ballad ‘Convoy’, dies

Deep-voiced country singer Bill Fries, known as CW McCall, who turned an ad campaign for an Iowa bread company into the outlaw trucker anthem “Convoy,” which hit #1 on the charts in 1976 and inspired a Sam Peckinpah movie. died Friday at his home in Ouray, Colo. He was 93 years old. His death was …

Jonathan Franzen Takes on the Domestic Diseases of the 1970s

If “Corrections” Now that it seems obsolete, this is mostly due to Franzen’s accuracy in gluing all his floppy disks and cell phones with antennas together into a mosaic of a still twin tower world. In “Crossroads,” she beautifully weaves the final, tumultuous years of the Age of Aquarius, without overdoing it. Tanner strumming guitar …

The 1970s Brought Change to the Beach Boys. Celebrating a New Boxed Set

As the 1970s dawned, beach kids they were in crisis. The quintessential American rock band of the ’60s, whose sun-kissed harmonies and string of girls-cars-and-surf hits created the myth that California legend was heaven, had lost its lock on the charts. Its leader, Brian Wilson, was withdrawn and unstable after a super ambitious album attempt. …