Jim Croce is one of those artists who we lost far too early. He was a great singer, songwriter, and balladeer.
Jim – James Joseph Croce – was a kid from South Philly to James Albert and Flora Mary Croce, who were themselves the children of Italian immigrants. Jim ended up at Villanova University, a Catholic college in Pennsylvania, where he majored in psychology. But while there, he joined a campus singing group, the Villanova Singers, and spent some months on an exchange tour of Eastern Europe. Jim later reportedly said of that experience:
We just ate what the people ate, lived in the woods, and played our songs. Of course, they didn't speak English over there, but if you mean what you're singing, people understand.
Jim released his first album, Facets, in 1966. It sold all 500 copies pressed – remember these were the days of vinyl albums. But it wasn’t until his albums You Don’t Mess Around With Jim (1972) and Life and Times (1973) were released that he hit the national stage. That’s the Jim Croce I remember, those last golden years before his accidental death.
Now, I’m leaving myself open to some criticism, I feel certain, for not including Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown and You Don’t Mess Around With Jim in this listing. While these songs were hits for Jim Croce, I find the six I present here to be better representations of what Jim was, that being a wonderful, thoughtful balladeer.
So, from Jim’s great, great years of 1972 and 1973, here are six great songs.
I Got a Name (1972): This song wasn’t originally released on an album, but was recorded for the 1973 movie The Last American Hero, based on the life of stock car driver Junior Johnson. Jim didn’t write this song; it was, instead, penned by Norman Bombel and Charles Fox. This was also the last song Jim performed before his death, the last song on his last concert in Natchitoches, Louisiana, before boarding that fatal Beechcraft. It’s as fitting an epitaph as anyone could ask.
Rapid Roy, The Stock Car Boy (1972): Recorded in 1972, this song was released on Jim’s album Photographs and Memories: His Greatest Hits. It’s all about a young guy racing stock cars, enjoying youth, freedom, all those quintessentially American things. It’s a song in which it's always summer, and you can hear the roar of the engines, feel the hot summer night, and smell the dust of a dirt track. Working At The Car Wash Blues (1972): This song probably couldn’t be recorded today, due to some of the lyrics having to do with the main character in the ballad thinking of how he would… entice his secretary, if he had managed to find that executive position he longed for. He doesn’t, and ends up instead working at the car wash; it’s an elegy to frustration, as the refrain goes:
Steadily depressin', low down mind messin', workin' at the car wash blues.
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Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels) (1972): From the album You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, and it’s a sad song of a love lost. Jim’s widow, Ingrid Croce, later said of this heartbreaker:
'Operator, could you help me place this call?' I'm picturing Jim out in the rain and this long line of guys where they're really trying to reach somebody. It was hard to get through, so you always had the operator do it for you.
She claimed Jim was inspired by his Army basic training, the lines of guys waiting for pay phones, and the number of them that had girls dump them during a call, or having had done so with the infamous “Dear John” letter.
Time In A Bottle (1973): Jim reportedly wrote this song the night he learned his wife, Ingrid Croce, was pregnant. It's especially poignant after the crash that took Jim’s life. It hit #1 on the American charts 14 weeks after Jim’s death.Oh, that baby, named Adrian, grew up to be singer/songwriter A.J. Croce. A.J. later said about this song from the father he never knew:
One Less Set Of Footsteps (1973): One of Jim’s last releases before his death, this is a song about the end of something, and how the main character, delivered through the lyrics, is walking away from a broken relationship with a sense of resignation and even some small amount of satisfaction. The chorus, repeating “one less set of footsteps on your floor in the mornin’” also seems to imply there were other people involved in the relationship, which is never a recipe for success.There's something about the sincerity of it that is undeniable. There's a difference between being precious and being sincere. There are times when we're so cautious about how we're writing that it becomes a precious piece of music instead of something that's honest and sincere. Being aware of that line and how to make it understandable is something I think my father was really good at as a storyteller and songwriter."
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Jim appeared on The Midnight Special six days before his death and performed a number of his best songs live for the audience. Do you know, I remember watching it with a buddy, and being shocked to hear of Jim’s death on the radio just those few days later. He was taken from us much too soon, and there are too few like him today.
I’m sure you all have some photographs and memories of Jim to share. The comments won’t pass you by – they are all yours.
