Some singer-songwriters back in the day had the talent, skill, and ability to go all the way. Jim Croce was one such musician who had a handful of hits before 1973. He was set to become one of the next big acts in the folk and singer-songwriter spaces.
Sadly, we lost him too soon. On this day, September 20, 1973, Croce was killed with five others in a plane crash in Louisiana while he was on his Life And Times tour. He was only 30 years old.
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It’s easy to look back at tragedies like this and remember them more than the iconic careers of the musicians who passed. But I think we should take this opportunity to revisit Croce’s legendary career on the anniversary of his passing.
The Legacy of Jim Croce
Jim Croce was born on January 10, 1943, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born to an Italian family, Croce joined campus singing groups while in college and also worked as a DJ. It wasn’t until college that he began to take his music career seriously. He began performing regularly at parties, schools, coffee houses, and everywhere else you might find a young folk singer-songwriter in the 60s.
Croce’s first hit came straight out of his breakthrough album, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, in 1972. The title track of that album hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and did similarly well in Canada. The following year, Croce scored his first No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 with “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown”, off the final album of his lifetime, Life And Times. While Croce’s first two records in the 60s didn’t chart, he turned into a star by 1972.
That star would burn bright before being suddenly dimmed. Jim Croce passed away on September 20, 1973, at only 30 years old. But in those 30 short years, he achieved more as a singer-songwriter than many of today’s aspiring artists could only hope for.
The 1973 song “Time In A Bottle” was released as an album track before his death. But due to overwhelming demand after his sudden passing, the song was released as a posthumous single. It became his biggest hit, topping the charts in the US and Canada. A posthumous album, I Got A Name, was released a few months after his death and reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
Jim Croce won’t be soon forgotten, thanks to his immortalization in “Time In A Bottle”.
Photo by Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
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