Jim Croce (
1943-
1973),
musician and
songwriter, is sometimes categorized as
pop and sometimes as
folk. Born in
Philadelphia to an
Italian-American family, he attended college at
Villanova and mixed playing
guitar with working as an
accordianist,
construction worker, and writing
soul jingles for an
R & B radio station. His first album was
You Don't Mess Around with Jim, and his second,
Life and Times, contained the
hit "
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," which is probably his most familiar
song--although my favorite is definitely "
Time in a Bottle," which is my personal
most romantic song of all time. Croce didn't become a big
star, though, continuing to tour mostly
college campuses. He died in a
plane crash at the age of
thirty, just as he was finally beginning to enjoy some
popular success with the top two positions on
Billboard's
best-selling LP charts. Recommended to fans of
Don McLean,
John Denver, and such.
And it should definitely be noted that the
deft guitar-playing of
Maury Muehleisen was integral to Croce's songs. Croce did most of the
vocals and
songwriting himself, but Muehleisen's guitar was equally important.