Louis Davis, Jr. was born into a family of musicians in rural Ohio, where he began his musical training at the tender age of four under the guidance of his grandmother, who taught him his first piano lessons. By the time he entered the University of Michigan music school, he had discovered his true musical passions, which lay in the realms of the bassoon and percussion.
He graduated in 1969 as a classically trained bassoonist, who also had a penchant for percussion, having played in the famous University of Michigan Marching Band. After touring with the renowned Norman Luboff Choir and teaching young people to appreciate the beauty of music, Davis took a new career path that would forever change the course of his life.
He began writing advertising jingles for an Omaha ad agency, including a series of commercials about a fictional truck driver named C.W. McCall and his waitress girlfriend Mavis at the Old Home Filler Up and Keep On Truckin' Cafe. What started as just another jingle for a bread company turned into a national phenomenon, with radio listeners calling in to request the commercials be played as if they were pop tunes, and the TV spots being listed in TV Guide.
With fellow ad executive Bill Fries, Davis accepted a recording contract and went on to produce blockbuster hits such as the 1975 hit "Convoy", which sold more than a million copies within two months, and eventually sold ten million copies.
