Jim Croce C/D

http://store.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGCOVERS/music/cover200/drg200/g248/g24830pph7b.jpg

In retrospect, I think that the moustache worked for him.

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory of how
They were answered by you.

So if the box is for wishes that haven't come true, and the box contains his memory of his dreams being answered, doesn't that mean his dreams really *weren't* answered?

It makes my head hurt worse than Memento.

American pop koan.

I have often wondered where his music would have led from 1972/73.

It's not fantastic all the way through, but the 2-disc "Definitive Collection" is the one to buy if you need one. It's basically got his three "regular" '70s LPs in their entirety, plus a few leftovers. And Amazon is selling it for a mere $12.99! It's not great all the way through but the price is right. (Personally, I've always been nostalgic about his second album, Life And Times: First LP I'd ever been given as a gift, on my seventh birthday, from my grandparents who were Croce fans themselves.)

I'd guess it's that, like Prine and unlike most SSS-S (70s Sensitive Singer-Songwriters,) Croce clearly worshipped at the shrine of Chuck Berry. Which is what ultimately kept his drawl out of Leon Redbone torpor territory, perhaps.

THIS DAY IN MUSIC

1973: Jim Croce dies in a plane crash in Natchitoches, La. He'd just
completed recording his third album, "I Got a Name," a week before.

i will echo some childhood memories stuff is going on here cuz my mom used to like him a lot when i was little.

Exactly--it is the same melody. "One Less Set of Footsteps" is the one I really like, and "Carwash Blues." He definitely had something...too bad he couldn't have gone on to collaborate with Prine or, here's a thought, Tom T. Hall...

i like 'operator' 'new yorks not my home' 'photographs and memories' and 'time in a bottle' but i dont really like any of the blues inflected stuff

New account, Geir?

I'm just me, trashthumb! How y'all doing!? http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/6633/nutxr2.gif

Well, "Time In a Bottle" is a beautiful song. Other than that I've only heard "Bad Boy Leroy Brown", which I like less.

"Bad Bad Leroy Brown" I mean.

Operator is really great, and as mentioned above, dude totally looks like the genetic mashup clone of the Marx Brothers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2iS8XctJKo

He was featured as a "character" on the U.S. "Life on Mars" last week. I'd already been thinking of "Operator" for weeks. Dude still rules.

Thing I'd been thinking of, actually: Elvis Sings Croce. And not Costello.

Never happened, by the way.

leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone ...

"Well a hush fell over the pool room
When Jim he come boppin' off the street
And when the cuttin' was done
The only part that wasn't bloody was the soles of the big man's feet
And he was cut in 'bout a hundred places
And he was shot in a couple more
And you better believe they sung a different kind of story
When big Jim hit the floor"

"I only wish my words could just convince myself that it just wasn't real. But that's not the way it feels."

This kills me every time. "Operator" is so great.

The first time I heard "Operator", after hearing the last verse ("let's forget about this call/there's no one there I really wanted to talk to/so thank you for your time/you've been so much more than kind/you can keep the dime"), I was expecting the song to be about Jim crushing out on the telephone operator and just placing random calls so he'd get a chance to talk to her. I was expecting the lyric on the last run-through of the chorus to become "let's forget all that, and give me your number ... so I can call just to tell you I'm fine". Great missed opportunity for a great lyrical twist IMO, but even as it is, I always love old songs that involve telephones for their inherent quaintness. I'm too young to remember when you had to talk to a switchboard operator before you could make a phone call.... (although these things always come around full circle - now we place calls by talking to Siri)

The one that always melts me is "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song". I've tried to do same at least once in my life.

Un-hip, yes, but still classic.

he's got a tattoo on his arm that say "baby"
he's got another one that just say "hey"

Kinda fun and of course sad to read through the site dedicated to his recording and performing partner Maury Muehleisen, who also died in the crash:

http://www.maurymuehleisen.com/main.html

kinda loving this album cover
http://www.maurymuehleisen.com/pics/gbread.jpg

I've been a singer from a young age, so I respond to Jim Croce. He's a great singer, great performer. Stuff like "Time in a Bottle" is overplayed maybe that deters people.

Enjoying less popular cuts like "Lover's Cross".

Still I hope that you can find
Another who can take what I could not
He'll have to be a super guy
Or maybe a super god
'Cause I never was much of a martyr before
And I ain't bout to start nothin' new
And baby, I can't hang upon no lover's cross for you

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41GWJXCF2RL._SL500_AA300_.jpg This is probably very good.

Not mentioned in this thread - the great "I Got a Name". Terrific road song.

Classic, even if "I Got a Name" had been the only thing he ever recorded.
― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, September 16, 2004 2:01 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pretty badly underrated I think, probably due to radio ubiquity - his songs just feel like they were always there instead of things a guy had to think up & write. McCombs/Peterson otm in re: "I Got A Name," that song stands with giants

mccombs/peterson/pgwp I mean. the axis of Name

He's just one of those artists whom people don't spend a lot of time on, but great voice, personality, excellent guitar.