Posted on 09/20/2020 2:52:20 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
James Joseph Croce (January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973)
You don’t have anything to be forgiven for. I just wasn’t aware it was the anniversary of his death. So I was curious as to the motive of the post. Happens to some of us when you are retied and do not pay much attention to what the date actually is on most given days. Of course it would have made me realize what the post motivation was without asking. 8>)
I am pretty sure I was coming home from school and a neighbor who knew I liked Croce’s songs told me the news of his passing. I was in denial.
I am a man of few words.
What you post is true.
I remember well the night he died.
I was walking down the streets of Augusta, GA, (Night off from Ft. Gordon), Listening to my transistor radio, and the last song they played before the news break, was “If I could save time in a bottle”.
I never knew if the D.J. knew in advance, and played that song as a memorial, just before someone else read the hourly news, or if it was the “Mother of all Coincidences”, but it was very eerie.
I was a big fan.
Ya didn’t read the 6 post b4 your asinine post
Grow up FU
Pay attention read the post then respond
Rapid Roy that Stock Car Boy.
Always a fun one
Wasn’t Croce on his way to a small gig that had been postponed when he hit it big? I seem to remember that being the rumor at the time.
The record label treated Jim’s family terribly. When he died the label stopped paying for his portion of the music sales. Jim’s wife and kid never saw a penny after his death even though his wife was co-writer of record on much of his music.
In a tv special his wife stated that Jim had made more money playing clubs and college parties than he ever made from the label.
That seems to have been par for the course at that time.
Operator and I’ve got a name are two of my favorites along with Photographs and Memories and Walking Back to Georgia.
Ask me to name my one favorite Croce song and I’ll tell you ALL OF THEM.
When I was a kid around 11 my family drove cross country from New York to California back in the Summer of 1973, from August to September, and just about every place we stopped at was playing Croces music, and by the time we got back to New York late September he was dead. That really sticks out in my mind, stopping at KOA camping places and the “trading posts” there usually had pinball machines and a jukebox and me and my brother would play pinball and Croce was always playing, Leroy Brown or Dont mess around with Jim, that and the Viki Lawrence song “That’s the night when the lights went out in Georgia” lol It’s weird but to this day I remember how it felt like. What really stands out in my mind is we kept running into the same family who were doing the same thing lol.
My curiosity post was 24 seconds after after post 5, not post 6 as you erroneously stated. It takes me awhile to read and post due to me going blind which requires me to use a magnifying glass to read and type.
Get a life dick wad, and grow up while you are at it. You talk and act like an immature little pissant.
I read that he didn’t like touring because it kept him away from his wife and son and, shortly before he was killed, he had decided to retire.
Considering how relatively rare plane crashes are, it’s amazing how much talent has been lost to them: Will Rogers; Glenn Miller; Buddy Holly along with Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens; Patsy Cline, along with Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins; Jim Reeves; Otis Redding; members of Lynard Skynard; Ricky Nelson; John Denver...
Hard to fathom that it has been 47 years since he died. OMG!!
47 YEARS!!!!!
That was families in the US back then, mine too
Wait for Dads vacation from his 9 to 5 or what ever in Summer and head out
No more
I was in high school then, and it sure doesn’t seem possible that that much time has passed.
Timeless music, as far as I’m concerned.
The first album I ever had was a Jim Croce album, “You Don’t Mess Arou With Jim” or some such. It was a birthday gift to me from a friend whom I hadn’t thought about for years until this thread.
I like compelling lyrics, and even almost half a century on I think of Jim Croce as a compelling lyricist — Walkin’ Back to Georgia, Hey Tomorrow, Box #10, the twin songs about the same thing — Bad Bad Leroy Brown and You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, on and on.
Wasn’t fate. i lived on NSU campus and heard the commotion that night from the dorm.
The cops had warned the band not to ‘imbibe’ the maryjane, but they did... so they were told NOT to go back to the hotel in town from the campus auditorium where they were playing, but had to leave town in the middle of that nite or be arrested.
They contacted their private pilot in the downtown hotel ~5 miles away and he had to rush to the Natchitoches airport which is right of campus across from a small lake. Stories i heard was that the pilot was ‘older’ and was in a panic and might have even ran some if not all the way to get the airplane ready.
The takeoff never got over the pecan trees about a few hundred yards from the landing strip. The considered thinking was the pilot died of a heart attack. The ‘official’ record IIRC was ‘fog’...
Allot of this story (and more) was buried due to liability and even Croce’s wife came to the local pub a year or so later asking for witnesses, etc.
i never heard what became of her investigation. But i do know they just plowed the plane into a spot by a two lane field road where i actually was able to see the inside, which was NOT for the faint of heart. Allot of ‘evidence’ was there to see/take.
Didn’t have to happen... i wasn’t at the concert that nite, wasn’t a big fan at the time. But roommates said the concert was fab.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.