Description:
Born: South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Father: Jim Croce
Mother: Flora Croce
Education: Upper Darby High School, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania; Malvern Preparatory School, Malvern, Pennsylvania & Villanova University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Spouse: Ingrid Croce (née Jacobson) (? - September 20 1973, his death)
Children: son, Adrian James "A. J." Croce, singer-songwriter (born: September 28 1971)
An American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles. His singles "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle" were both number on
Born: South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Father: Jim Croce
Mother: Flora Croce
Education: Upper Darby High School, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania; Malvern Preparatory School, Malvern, Pennsylvania & Villanova University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Spouse: Ingrid Croce (née Jacobson) (? - September 20 1973, his death)
Children: son, Adrian James "A. J." Croce, singer-songwriter (born: September 28 1971)
An American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles. His singles "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle" were both number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Croce did not take music seriously other than as a hobby until his time at Villanova University where he formed various bands, performing at fraternity parties, coffee houses and at universities around Philadelphia playing blues, rock, a cappella and railroad music.
Croce met his future wife Ingrid Jacobson during a hootenanny at Philadelphia Convention Hall where he was judging a contest. From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Croce performed with his wife as a duo. At first, their performances were cover versions of songs by other artists but in time they began writing their own music.
In 1968 Jim and Ingrid Croce were encouraged by record producer Tommy West to move to New York City. The couple spent time in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx and recorded their first album with Capitol Records. During the next two years, they drove more than 300,000 miles playing small clubs and concerts on the college concert circuit promoting their album 'Jim & Ingrid Croce'.
Becoming disillusioned by the music business specifically and New York City in general, they sold all but one guitar to pay the rent and returned to the Pennsylvania countryside where Jim got a job driving trucks and doing construction to pay the bills while continuing to write songs, often about the characters he would meet at the local bars and truck stops and his experiences at work.
In 1970, Croce met the classically trained pianist/guitarist and singer-songwriter Maury Muehleisen through producer Joe Salviuolo, who had been friends with Croce when they attended Villanova University together. Salviuolo brought the Croce and Muehleisen duo together at the production office of Tommy West and Terry Cashman in New York City.
In 1972 Croce signed a three-record deal with ABC Records and released two albums: 'You Don't Mess Around with Jim' and 'Life and Times'. The singles "You Don't Mess Around with Jim", "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)" and "Time in a Bottle" all received airplay. Croce's biggest single "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" hit No. 1 on the American charts in July 1973. That year, the Croces relocated to San Diego, California.
On September 20 1973, the day that his ABC single "I Got a Name" was released, Croce, Muehleisen and four others were killed in the crash of a chartered Beechcraft E18S upon takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Croce had just completed a concert at Northwestern State University's Prather Coliseum in Natchitoches and was flying to Sherman, Texas for a concert at Austin College when the plane crashed about an hour after the end of the concert.
The album 'I Got a Name' was released on December 1 1973. Croce had finished recording the album just over a week before his death. The posthumous release included three hits: "Workin' at the Car Wash Blues", "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" and "I Got A Name". The album reached No. 2 and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" reached No. 9 on the singles chart.
A greatest hits package entitled 'Photographs & Memories', released in 1974, proved to be extraordinarily popular. Later posthumous releases have included 'Home Recordings: Americana', 'Facets', 'Jim Croce: Classic Hits' and 'Down the Highway'.
A DVD of Croce's television performances 'Have You Heard: Jim Croce Live' was released in 2003 and CD of the same name was released in 2006.
In 1990 Croce was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Died: Natchitoches, Louisiana, USA in a plane crash.
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Tags: Died September 20 (2), Born 1943 (2), Died 1973 (2), Born In Pennsylvania (2), Died Aged 30 (1), Aviation Death (1), Killed In Plane Crash (1), Born In Philadelphia (1), Born January 10 (1), Died In September (1), Philadelphia Pennsylvania USA (1), January 10 (1), Born In January (1), Plane Crash (1), Died Young (1), Italian-American (1), Deceased (1), Folk Music (1), Italian American (1), Singer Songwriter (1)
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