Jan. 10: Jim Croce - "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," "Operator" "Time in a Bottle"- was born on this date in 1943...

... he died on September 20, 1973.

Between 1960 and 1973, Croce, who was born in South Philadelphia, released six studio albums and eleven singles. His singles "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle" were both number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

Jim gravitated towards music at a young age. He learned to play  “Lady of Spain” on the accordion when he was five years-old. While a student at Villanova, he performed in a variety of bands and was also a  disc jockey a a local station. He met his wife Ingrid while he was at Villanova. 

From the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Croce and Ingrid performed as a duo, covering songs by artists such as Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Woody Guthrie. Eventually, they wrote and performed their own  compositions.

In 1968, Jim and Ingrid Croce moved to New York City to record 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.

Disillusioned, they sold all but one guitar to pay the rent and they 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 enjoyed meeting at the local bars and truck stops.

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In 1972, Croce signed a three-record deal with ABC Records and released two LPs, You Don't Mess Around with Jim and Life & Times that same year. The singles "You Don't Mess Around with Jim," "Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)," and "Time in a Bottle" (written for his then-unborn son, A. J. Croce) all received airplay. Croce's biggest single, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," hit #1 on the American charts in July 1973.

Jim Croce died in a plane crash upon takeoff from Natchitoches Regional Airport,  a week after recording his memorable hit records, "I Got a Name," "Workin' at the Car Wash Blues," and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song."

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