Singer-songwriter born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who inspired a generation, and whose success was tragically short-lived. After graduating in 1960 he went on to study psychology and German at Villanova University and gained his Bachelor’s Degree in 1965. While there he was a DJ at WKVU and performed with the Villanova Singers and the Villanova Spires, aka The Coventry Lads.
After years of playing coffeehouses, ABC signed him to a three-record deal in 1972. He wasted no time fulfilling his contract, releasing You Don’t Mess Around With Jim in ’72 and Life & Times in ’73. Croce may have had a prophetic sense of urgency.
On 20th September 1973, after performing a concert in Natchitoches, Louisiana, he and his collaborator, Maury Muehleisen, were killed instantly in an airplane accident. The pilot, Robert Newton Elliott, suffered from severe coronary artery disease, and may have had a heart attack on the plane: For some inexplicable reason, he had run about three miles from the hotel to somewhere nearby the airport.
A day after the accident, I Got a Name, the third of Croce’s ABC albums, was released. Jim Croce left behind a significant musical legacy for someone with such a relatively short career. Hits like the aforementioned “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim”, “Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels)”, and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” receive steady airplay to this day. “Time in a Bottle” was written for his newborn son A.J. Croce, who became a pop/rock artist in his own right.
His wife Ingrid ran a restaurant erected in his memory, Croce’s, in San Diego, California, until 2013 and then ran another one in Balboa Park until 2016. She also published I Got a Name: The Jim Croce Story in 2012.
Jim was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990.
Paul Rupright recordings
Time in a Bottle (Jim Croce)
https://youtu.be/YcqauC49Xmc
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