Sunday Spin: Jim Croce

OUR WEEKLY SERIES MARKS
35th ANNIVERSARY OF ’70S SONGWRITER’S PASSING

In many ways, Jim Croce was a transitional figure that bridged the straight up ’60s folk scene and the ’70s personal folk-pop artists that emerged (often to great success) in his wake. Croce was killed in a plane crash in Natchitoches, Louisiana on September 20, 1973. He had just finished recording his third major label album, I Got A Name, one week before the crash. Though he would not live to see its release, it confirmed the suspicion that Croce was on the edge of major stardom. Sometimes slighted in critical circles in the intervening years, Croce’s gifts included abounding charisma, a knack for characters, facility with universal melancholy AND humor and real skill at crafting hooks. Coming up in the same pack with Loudon Wainwright III, John Prine and other scruffy notables that crawled out of the coffeehouse, Croce was perhaps the most winning of the bunch, and it’s often only dumb jealousy that devalues his ability to connect across broad lines. He might not have possessed the sorrowful depth of Prine or the inspired nastiness of Wainwright but he made music, especially on I Got A Name, that made people smile and sigh in enormous numbers.

Released posthumously, Name garnered three Top 10 hits on the Adult Contemporary chart (a category his music helped give birth to) with “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song” reaching Number One. The album is dotted with strong performances from studio legends like Steve Gadd (Paul Simon) and Rick Marotta (Peter Gabriel) and flows with heartfelt grace. Since his passing, there have been more than two dozen anthologies of his meager catalog. Not bad for a guy who bowed out at the age of just 30. For anyone who grew up in or simply lived through the 1970s, Jim Croce was marbled into the radio tapestry of that decade. Long after his death he remained a radio staple, dueling with fresh waves of emotive singer-songwriters who’d likely picked up a trick or three from his tunes. His memory remains and we happily light a candle in his honor tonight.

I Got A Name Track List:

“I Got a Name”
“Lover’s Cross”
“Five Short Minutes”
“Age”
“Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues”
“I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song”
“Salon and Saloon”
“Thursday”
“Top Hat Bar and Grille”
“Recently”
“The Hard Way Every Time”

Here’s Croce laying out the full title and thinking behind “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues” before a nifty acoustic duo performance.

Perhaps one of the most brightly wistful tunes to ever hit the airwaves, Croce performs “I Got A Name” on television in 1973.

We close with one of the last filmed performances by Croce and his band, where they offer up a bittersweet “Lover’s Cross” and a jumpin’ “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” for your enjoyment And in the end, that urge to please and delight, rests at the bottom of Croce’s undying appeal.