Reminiscing on Jim Croce

kicked back listening to some Jim Croce on Roon and was thinking " has anyone ever created a body of work like Croce made in just two years (1972-3)? Just hard to believe the quality and quantity of great songwriting in such a period and yet he seems to get hardly a mention when songwriters are discussd.

 

Unfortunately, Jim has been gone now for 44 years. His discography is very brief............3 albums and a greatest hits. Of course, other things came later. I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song a #1 posthumous. Most people now, I venture to say, know as much about Jim as they do about Don McClean. Though, Jim had a better catalog for his brief time.

I was 13 when he died. I had his Greatest Hits. You ask a good question. I could name someone like James Taylor, but his came over a 3 year period. Jackson Browne also had a good start between 72-74.

 

Croce and his guitar player Maury Muehleisen were both very talented. My favorite from them is I Got a Name. RIP to both.

 

all his albums were available in Quad, I just recently copied the Photographs hits collection to reel and it sounds great.

 

He's a fellow alumnus of my University - Villanova, class of 1965:

Croce was a member of the Villanova Singers and the Villanova Spires. When the Spires performed off-campus or made recordings, they were known as The Coventry Lads. Croce was also a student disc jockey at WKVU (which has since become WXVU).​

 

His music is great and hopefully will live on. Heck, Steve Hoffman did a FANTASTIC job with the old DCC gold CD and the DCC vinyl. Outstanding! He does get played on oldies stations, but sadly time does tend to erase it all. In time, even the Stones and Beatles music will be lost on future generations. Oh, it will always be there to listen to, but the urge will certainly be diminished as more fans pass away.

 

I totally understand he wasnt around long enough to be grouped as one of the all-time greats in some circles. I was hoping he would make the R&R HOF. His body of work in such a short time is outstanding.

 

It really was, wasn't it. A hall of fame worthy selection!

 

Jim Croce was a true genius. Even now his songs sometimes move me to tears, and then his little intros on the live stuff has me in stitches. I am really happy that my daughter picked up on him too, cracking musical taste!!!

 

Sad really. Just as his star was rising, it was over. Bad pilots? A rush to get out of town? Who knows. What is known is that it was a bad place to leave a couple of Pecan trees near the end of a runway. They've since been removed.

 

Very sad still after all of this time. I've been thinking about and playing Jim Croce for the past few weeks and his videos have been following me on YouTube.

Out of all of the rock deaths, this one is up there. I'm not sure if I ever got over it but the pain waxes and wanes..

 

I concur will all sentiments. Check out his take of Old Man River...he makes it his own.

 

I'm a 230 pound blue collar worker, but I have to admit that Jim's songs and voice can move me to tears.

 

There are 2 singer songwriters that should be in the hall and are not. One is Harry Chapin and the other is Jim Croce. One interesting program to watch is the VH1 Behind The Music on Jim Croce. That will bring anyone to tears.

 

Jim's passing is the first musical one I remember affecting me. I was 9 & loved "Bad Bad Leroy Brown", and can still call up a memory of being in the living room and hearing the news over the radio. Can't remember how I processed it.

What I CAN process now is the thought of how much incredible music we would've had if not for that damned pecan tree.

 

Was a huge fan just after he died when i was in high school. I still own that original vinyl, although it has been years since i dropped a needle on it. Brilliant work....

 

Jim's stuff has that earthy appeal, as he sings about stuff many can identify with...very much like Ronnie VanZant did with Skynyrd...singing about simple things

 

It's hard to gauge how influential he was. But let me tell you----those videos of just him and Maury----my musician friends still rave about them. The quality of the songs and the guitar interplay....how could someone with an ear for music not be moved by those performances?

 

Jim Croce above all other singer songwriters was very much a reflection of middle america.

He had the look of a local mechanic or street cleaner operator. A bluejean shirt and that nearly cartoonish mustache. A cigar that smelled like a highway song. A husband singing to his wife. A rich voice that sounded like walnut syrup. His singing invited a person into the common in the most relaxing sweet baritone voice.

The simplist of love songs, to a song about a mythological street scene in Leroy Brown. To the ink written walls of a green phone booth expressing common thoughtfulness in the uncommon situation of conversing with an phone operator.

Jim Croce could and did write about the mid city mindset that was somewhere between NYC and any americana across the land we live. A great singer, songwriter and storyteller.

 

All of his albums are excellent with his insightful love songs alternating with his raucous story songs and character sketches. His final album, the posthumously released I Got A Name, is his best and hints at possible even better albums that may have been released later had he lived to make them. I also highly recommend the out of print double album The Faces I've Been which chronologically traces his recording career with all the tracks previously unreleased on major labels, including 2 tracks recorded with his college folk group the Spires, 4 from his locally released Facets album, duets with his wife Ingrid, and several excellent previously unreleased recordings including a whole side of his witty monologues. With copious notes and rare archival photos, it reveals the years of struggle behind his apparent overnight success.
Also recommended is his widow Ingrid Croce's book I Got A Name: The Jim Croce Story which tells how Jim was a victim of shady and unscrupulous record executives and managers. He made millions with his recordings and concert tours, but most of it that didn't go for plane tickets and hotel accommodations lined the pockets of his producers and managers while Jim was screwed out of many of his royalties and other earnings and placed on a $200.00 weekly allowance and died broke at age 30. After some drawn out court battles, Ingrid was reimbursed many years after Jim's death.

 

There's a story he may've been piloting that plane himself, and if so was one of his first solo take-offs and just wasn't up to conditions (and was failed partly by the registered pilot). There are recordings of the last concert, I have to say I haven't had the desire to listen myself. Really awful thing that happened to these guys and their families... heavy touring that was paying off and could have lessened finally, almost there but...

Maury Muehleisen's album is worth getting as well as all the great stuff Jim did with Ingrid, they were somewhat influenced by Ian & Sylvia while still having their own unique sound and songs, but a little late to the folk duo scene on that although Jim & Jean and Don Williams & Susan Taylor were still going into the late '60s too. His son A.J. went on to be a great artist as well.

Still a huge loss. There is a great DVD collection of live tv numbers, ' Have You heard Jim Croce Live' with really nice extras.

 

It's so unfair to lump Croce into a category with Harry Chapin ("folk singers who had some hits, then had one accident in the early '70s"). I prefer Harry for his courageous music and stories; but that shouldn't be held against Jim's more benign but nonetheless just as affecting songbook. They both had the attention of 'boomers in their era, and earned the praise and applause they enjoyed. Admittedly, Jim missed a lot more of the good part, compared to Harry.

I have a picture of my friends and me, standing along the fence right about where the trees used to be, at the end of that runway. For a number of years, my friends and I had taken excursions throughout the country, particularly in search of the backgrounds of several plane and 'copter crashes that took some of our most significant musicians. We would end our trip in Minneapolis, at a national Radio industry event, eyes a little clearer, with stories to take back to our audiences. We grew up listening to radios playing Jim's music, following it up with something droll like, "taken from us far too early"...and coming up right after this break...

There's a heckuva lot more to this story, and I'm not sure I'm the guy to tell it. But the pilot may not have been mentally prepared to drop everything and prepare for an early takeoff. The college might not have gotten a full set that night. The local police may have been looking to make points with a good ol' fashioned drug bust. That tree may have been the most innocent bystander that night. Or, I may just be talking out of turn, or out of my...

All I can tell you is, that was a great afternon, and it was quite some miles down the road before we were sure nobody was coming after us.

 

Dillydipper, why you think it is "unfair" to "lump" Jim together with Harry. They do have many similarities as you point out. I love them both but I don't think they are dissimilar.

I saw Jim and Maury as the opening act to a concert in Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo. It was about the time that "Operator" hit big. But I'll be damned if I can remember who he was opening for. Maybe someone here knows.

 

Miss him to this day. This will go in my coffin for the long trip:

 

March 9, 1973 Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, NY (supporting Loggins & Messina)
Jim Croce