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remembering Jim Croce (1943-1973)

09 Jan 07 - 08:18 PM (#1931895)
Subject: Jim Croce's birthday
From: The Shambles

Jim Croce was born this day (10 January) in 1943.


04 Mar 10 - 09:45 AM (#2855832)
Subject: remembering Jim croche
From: olddude

I got a Name


04 Mar 10 - 09:46 AM (#2855833)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: olddude

Operator


04 Mar 10 - 09:48 AM (#2855835)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: olddude

cant type of course I meant JIM CROCE


04 Mar 10 - 10:08 AM (#2855849)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: Leadfingers

Another Writer who died FAR too young !


04 Mar 10 - 10:22 AM (#2855868)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: GUEST,jeff

One can't remember Jim Croce w/o a strong nod to his accompianist Maury Muehleisen whose guitar work was so interwoven w/Croce's. Those straight forward, tasteful figures were as important to Croce's sound as his voice, songs and production. Croce was direct, unadorned, simple and accessable. It's sad that he passed so young as his body of recorded works is small. Didn't fully appreciate his abilities as a musicain until becoming accomplished myself and having an occasion to learn one of his songs for a gig. Then I went on a tear and learned a dozen. The two of them had a seamless blend. They set the standard for guitar interplay in acoustic music. A very original approach. Understated and overlooked. Had the pleasure of seeing him and the magic was that there was no show business veneer. He was the genuine article and truly a man of the people. Latter day Will Rogers.


04 Mar 10 - 10:40 AM (#2855881)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

You have to put the song in the second link on first, then...watch the first link with the sound turned down....

Jim...

Time In A Bottle


Dan, you are bringing tears this week....so many tender memories with Harry and Jim.

Heck but how we need gentle men like them back again in this hard, corrupt, so often insensitive world.


04 Mar 10 - 10:44 AM (#2855885)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

You know, when I listen to music like Harry Chapin and Jim Croce, I realise how very lucky I was to grow up with their music being so much a part of my life.

So much music nowadays is downbeat and even violent.

Cripes, but we had some of the best music EVER!


04 Mar 10 - 10:55 AM (#2855891)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

I found a better link, Dan.

'Time in a Bottle' - video and audio combined


This song always reminds me of my Dad and my daughter. Too sad to tell..but how I wish I could have put his time with her into that bottle of Jim's, so she could remember all the love he poured into her during their 3 short years together.


04 Mar 10 - 11:00 AM (#2855896)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: catspaw49

From an earlier thread.....I posted the following:

I don't know what albums you have, but the anthology released a couple of years ago is well worth it if you're a Croce fan. But if you want to hear something of his early stuff that was much more "folk-like" and simply produced, his first album, with a couple additions, was also re-released under the title, "Bombs Over Puerto Rico" and is something you need to hear. It is just Jim acoustically with a small group and Ingrid (his wife) singing the duets. There are a couple of fantastic songs on there that never made it, even after his death.

BTW, the word was that he wanted to do a simpler recording on his next album, possibly in Nashville. He didn't care for the "orchestral" treatment either. That was just a rumor, I don't know whether its true or not...but it fits. Ingrid had a beautiful voice but unfortunately had a medical problem after Jim died that curtailed any use of her singing voice. She now runs a night spot called "Croce's" in San Diego where their son AJ plays jazz piano. As you're also probably aware, she's kinda' looked down on by a large contingent of fans and former associates because she fought to gain what was Jim's for herself and their son that the publishers had screwed him out of. She seems pretty neat to me. Wish she still sang.


I'm a big fan but Karen is an even bigger one. WE have all the stuff and both of us really love that album I referenced. The stuff with Ingrid in the early days was something very special. Fans? Oh yeah.....Even got Karen a copy of Ingrid's cookbook a 12 or so years ago and she was nice enough to sign it for Karen.

Spaw


04 Mar 10 - 11:14 AM (#2855908)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: MikeL2

hi lizzie

Thanks for the Time in a Bottle link.

One of my all-time favourite songs.

Makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up every time I hear it.

And thanks Dan for starting this nostalgiac link.

regards

MikeL2


04 Mar 10 - 12:40 PM (#2855999)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: GUEST,henryp

I was fortunate to see Jim Croce at Cambridge Folk Festival - it was his only British concert. He turned up unexpectedly in a Greyhound bus and filled a vacant spot.

The compere was Isla St Clair and she let him and Maury overrun at the expense of Bob Davenport. Bob was not amused.

A great performance, though, with several new songs. I was afraid that I might never hear them again, but they appeared on I Got a Name.


04 Mar 10 - 12:41 PM (#2856002)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: open mike

Wow--he was only 30 when he died http://www.jimcroce.com/
i heard that he had a family member (brother? son? )
who owned a bar and or music venue in So. Cal.
yes i think it was his son, Adrian James (A.J.)
His wife Ingrid started this place...a restaurant called
Croce's, which is located in the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego

according to this tribute page
http://www.classicbands.com/croce.html


04 Mar 10 - 12:50 PM (#2856006)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: GUEST,FolkGiant

Jim Croce is one of my all-time favorites. The previous comment about writers/singers like him and Harry Chapin being softer and more sensitive was so right on. I've felt for years like there have been two main threads in male pop music: the hard-assed wanna-be tough guys and the "mushy because it sells" crowd. Like John Mayer, the epitome of both.

Jim wrote the way he wrote way before he got famous; so said Ingrid in a book I read. Harry was the same way.

"I'll Have To Say I Love You (In A Song)" is a song I love; it so speaks to the many ways I have tried and often failed to show love to those who deserve it.

Oh, and Jim's guitar work with the superb Mr. Muehleisen was and is a touchstone for every two-guitar arrangement I write or perform.

Rest in peace, Jim.


04 Mar 10 - 12:51 PM (#2856007)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: olddude

I loved the music, he was so amazing


04 Mar 10 - 01:21 PM (#2856022)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Jim and Maurie - Lovers Cross


Found it, FolkGiant!!...took me an age, so many covers on Youtube, but no original. :0)

The oh so tender...   

I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song - Myspace video


04 Mar 10 - 02:24 PM (#2856080)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: mkebenn

Saw him shortly before he died, openning for
loggins and Messina in Buffalo. What a spellbinding show

"Pages are meant for turnin',

and people are bound to change.

Bridges are meant for burnin'

when the people and memories

they join aren't the same...Lover's Cross..Mike


04 Mar 10 - 02:29 PM (#2856083)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim croche
From: GUEST,MeadowMuskrat

I saw him open for The Incredible String Band at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic NJ some time in the mid 70's. His down to earth lyrics sharply contrasted the ISB's more mythologic approach, but the audience loved both acts.


20 Aug 13 - 03:13 PM (#3551134)
Subject: Lyr Add:OPERATOR (THAT'S NOT THE WAY IT FEELS)
From: Jim Dixon

This was mentioned in another thread, and I thought we ought to have a copy somewhere. I have checked these lyrics against a recording.


OPERATOR (THAT'S NOT THE WAY IT FEELS)
As recorded by Jim Croce, 1972.

1. Operator, well, could you help me place this call?
See, the number on the matchbook is old and faded.
She's living in L. A. with my best old ex-friend Ray,
A guy she said she knew well and sometimes hated.

CHORUS: Isn't that the way they say it goes?
But lets forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell them I'm fine and to show
I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn't real, but that's not the way it feels.

2. Operator, oh, could you help me place this call?
'Cause I can't read the number that you just gave me.
There's something in my eyes; you know it happens every time.
I think about the love that I thought would save me.

CHORUS
No, no, no, no, that's not the way it feels

3. Operator, well, let's forget about this call
There's no one there I really wanted to talk to
Thank you for your time; Oh, you've been so much more than kind
You can keep the dime. CHORUS


20 Aug 13 - 07:02 PM (#3551215)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim Croce (1943-1973)
From: catspaw49

I mentioned above the early duets with Ingrid and here is a beauty in all respects..........

VESPERS---Jim & Ingrid together

Spaw


20 Sep 14 - 08:49 AM (#3662133)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim Croce (1943-1973)
From: GUEST,henryp

20 September 1973 Jim Croce - with Maury Muehleisen - died when his aircraft crashed in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

A folk singer who found fame with his own songs. A great loss.


17 Nov 15 - 10:48 AM (#3751602)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim Croce (1943-1973)
From: GUEST

Like Henry P. Guest (above) I too was at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 1973, and was privileged to hear such a great performer only two months before his untimely death; I remember his set lasting more than half an hour, but we were all spellbound - what a tragic waste of a life. Sadly, the very good friend who accompanied me to CFF '73 and my best mate (who was always jealous of my having seen Jim Croce) have both passed on in the last few years, so I have no one to share my memories with any more. He died the day before my 27th birthday.

Martin Walker


17 Nov 15 - 12:41 PM (#3751628)
Subject: RE: remembering Jim Croce (1943-1973)
From: GUEST,henryp

Martin - Cambridge Folk Festival 1973

Steeleye Span, Steve Goodman, John Prine, Stefan Grossman, The Dransfields, Planxty, Derek Brimstone, Davey Graham, Dick Gaughan, Bob Davenport, Chris Rohmann, Shades of MacMurrough, Dave Cartwright, Rum, Tony Caspick, Fiona Stuart and Chris Newman, Baby Whale, Ragged Robin, Fine City, Orange Blossom Sound, The Southern Ramblers, Pete Sayers, The Radio Cowboys, The Tumbleweeds, Temporary Ferret, Pete Stanley and Roger Knowles, Stock Room Brawl, Brian Golbey, Every Day Dirt

A great line-up! Planxty - they had Christy Moore and Paul Brady playing together. Tony Caspick - pickled again! So many names have disappeared - we were privileged to see them.