HIS LIFE

A lot of singers claim to write about “real life,” & maybe a lot of them do. But Jim wrote about everyday life, as beautiful or ugly or mundane as it ever is.

When Jim Croce stepped on stage at Northwestern State University in Louisiana on September 20, 1973, he was riding a wave of long-overdue success. Over the prior year and a half, the 30-year-old singer/songwriter had gone from an opening act to the headliner.

He had released two much-loved albums with a third, I Got A Name, due to come out in 10 days. Since the release of his ABC Records debut, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, in early 1972, Croce had been working virtually non-stop. A surprise hit, the album produced three high-charting singles: the title track, "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)," and “Time In A Bottle,” and his follow-up, 1973’s Life And Times yielded his first #1 hit, “Bad Bad Leroy Brown.”