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Jim Croce was born on Sunday, January 10th, 1943 in a working-class section of Philadelphia, in an Italian-American family. While a teenager, he began playing the accordion, and then learning to play an acoustic guitar when he was 18. After a short stint in the U.S. Army, where he supposedly met the character who inspired the song "Bad Bad Leroy Brown," Jim entered Villanova University for a degree in psychology, but he spent a lot of time working with bands, playing musical instruments and performing musical solos, more than 90% of the time.

Jim worked as a construction worker after graduation, after surviving from a diesel accident, he then worked temporarily as a school teacher of a Junior High school in South Philadelphia. On Sunday, August 28th, 1966, Jim Croce married his wife, Ingrid Jacobson. Then in 1967, they moved to New York City where they performed together, as a folk duo performing in city nightclubs & coffeehouses & recorded an album, that's titled "Another Day, Another Town".

Jim and Ingrid moved back to Pennsylvania where they bought a farmhouse and became parents to their only son, A.J. Croce. A.J.'s name at birth was Adrian James Croce. Adrian was born on Tuesday, September 28th, 1971, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, while Jim was a diesel truck driver to earn & pay their daily food & all other monthly utility bills. A year later, one of Jim's long time college friends advised him to record some of his newer songs & send them to ABC Records, where they signed Jim up and his first solo album, "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" was released in 1972 & it was one of the top 20 best selling albums of 1972, in the United States of America.

Combined, in 1972 to 1973, Jim Croce' performed in more than 250 concerts, he was a guest-star as TV shows and released his second album in mid 1973 titled "Life and Times." This album, featured his all time and most popular hit song, (solo 45 RPM, or 33 RPM album), of "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown!".

He also recorded his third album, "I've Got a Name" and the title song was used in the soundtrack of The Last American Hero (1973). It starred Jeff Bridges, and the complete album which was released on Monday, July 23rd, 1973.

His song, "Time in a Bottle" from his first solo album, received sudden national sales after being featured in "She Lives" a made for ABC-TV movie which originally aired on Wednesday, September 12th, 1973, during the. evening hours.

Eight days later, Thursday, September 20th, 1973, Jim Croce's life and career came to a sudden end when he and his musical partner, Maury Muehleisen and others boarded a private airplane in Natchitoches, Louisiana to travel to a gig in Texas when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff killing everyone on board.

His third album includes the songs "I Got a Name," and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" which were posthumous hits. In all, Jim Croce had eight top-10 singles and three top-10 albums from 1972 to 1974.

In the lyrics to the hauntingly wistful "Time in a Bottle", Jim left his own best epitaph as if he had foresaw his own death. Lyric: "There never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them".

I&#39;m no missionary and I can&#39;t wear any armor, either. I just gotta be the way I am.

There&#39;s something about approaching universal truths with the simplicity of the acoustic guitar. You can take it anywhere and it helps me reach listeners of all ages and walks of life.

[on his roots] I never really thought of my neighborhood in South Philly as being a neighborhood, it was more a state of mind. For people who aren&#39;t familiar with those kinds of places, it&#39;s a whole different thing. Like 42nd Street in New York City is a state of mind.

If you dig it, do it. If you really dig it, do it twice.

Quotes

Jim Croce

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