A. J. Croce | |
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 Croce performing in 2007 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Adrian James Croce |
| Born | September 28, 1971 Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Genres | Pop, rock, blues, country |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter, musician |
| Instruments | Piano, guitar |
| Years active | 1983-present |
| Labels | Private Music, Ruf, Compass |
| Website | www |
Adrian James "A.J." Croce (born September 28, 1971) is an American singer-songwriter. His parents are Ingrid Croce and Jim Croce.
Croce was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on September 28, 1971, the son of singers Jim Croce, who was from an Italian Roman Catholic family, and Ingrid Croce, who is Jewish. His father died in a plane crash in September 1973, at age 30, eight days before A.J.'s second birthday. Shortly before his father's death, in the summer of 1973, the family moved to San Diego. When he was four years old, he was temporarily blinded as a result of abuse from his mother's boyfriend. He was hospitalized for six months and was totally blind in both eyes for six years. Croce grew up listening to Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, a lot of soul music, early rock 'n' roll, jazz, and blues. [1] He learned how to play the piano, inspired by Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. [2] He later regained sight in one eye. [3] [4] For junior high, Croce attended Hebrew school. [5] When he was 15, in 1987, the family's house burned down. [6]
Croce's first paying gig was at the age of 12, when he was paid $20 to perform 25–30 minutes of cover versions at a bar mitzvah party. Croce played music for a living from the age of 15. [7] By the age of 16, Croce was performing regularly at San Diego nightclubs as a sideman and band leader. [1]
When he was 17, while staying at the house of Arlo Guthrie, he met Mae Boren Axton, who invited him to Nashville to record with Jack Clement. [8]
Ron Goldstein and Peter Baumann of Private Music signed Croce to his first recording contract, at age 19. [1] He recorded two albums for Private Music: his self-titled debut, A. J. Croce , produced by T-Bone Burnett and John Simon; and That's Me in the Bar , produced by Jim Keltner, and featuring Ry Cooder and David Hidalgo. [9]
Croce's third album, Fit to Serve , was recorded in 1998 in Memphis and produced by Jim Gaines, who produced Van Morrison, Carlos Santana, and the Steve Miller Band. [10]
Songs on Transit , released in 2000, were compared to the works of The Beatles, Elvis Costello, and The Posies. [11]
In 2003, Croce launched his own record label, Seedling Records. [12]
Croce's next three albums were self-produced. Adrian James Croce , Croce's only pop-oriented album, was the only independently produced album of 2004 to chart in the Top 40 in the U.S. The album won Best Pop album at the 2004 San Diego Music Awards. His 2006 album, Cantos, on his own label, Seedling Records, features Ben Harper. [13] In 2009, his album Cage of Muses was released on Seedling, garnering a 4-star review from Rolling Stone . [14]
In 2012, he publicly performed an entire set of his father's songs for the first time. [15]
In 2013, Croce signed with Compass Records and released Twelve Tales. He recorded two songs with each of six producers in five U.S. cities over 12 months, releasing one song per month exclusively on iTunes in 2013. The full album was released in 2014. The album's producers were Jack Clement, Allen Toussaint, Mitchell Froom, Kevin Killen, Tony Berg, and Greg Cohen. [16] Croce co-wrote a few of the songs on Twelve Tales, including one song with Leon Russell.
In 2014, Croce spoke at TEDxLaJolla, an independently produced TED. [17]
His 2017 album, Just Like Medicine, according to ABC News, "sounds like it was crafted with the influence of greats like Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello in mind". [18]
Croce lives in East Nashville, Tennessee. [19] In 2018, his wife, Marlo Gordon Croce, died of a rare and sudden heart virus while he was in the midst of his own health scare. A.J. was left a single father to two children.
James Joseph Croce was an American folk and rock singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, he released five studio albums and numerous singles. During this period, Croce took a series of odd jobs to pay bills while he continued to write, record and perform concerts. After Croce formed a partnership with the songwriter and guitarist Maury Muehleisen in the early 1970s, his fortunes turned. Croce's breakthrough came in 1972, when his third album, You Don't Mess Around with Jim, produced three charting singles, including "Time in a Bottle", which reached No. 1 after Croce died. The follow-up album Life and Times included the song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", Croce's only No. 1 hit during his lifetime.
Facets is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, released and self-published in 1966. Croce had five hundred copies of the album pressed, financed with a $500 cash wedding gift that he and his wife to be, Ingrid Croce, received from his parents. Croce's parents were certain that Jim would fail completely at selling the record, and realizing that he couldn't support his family as a singer, would abandon music and finish his college education. The album was recorded in a three-hour session at Ken-Del Studios in Wilmington, Delaware. Unexpectedly, it proved to be a success. Croce sold every record, even turning a profit of $2500. The majority of those records were sold to fans who attended Croce's shows at local bars. Original vinyl copies of Facets are extremely rare today.
Steve Poltz is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is a founding member of the indie-rock band the Rugburns and collaborated on several songs with singer Jewel, including the 1996 single "You Were Meant for Me", which reached number 2 in the US.
John Reis, also known by the pseudonyms Speedo, Slasher, and the Swami is an American musician, singer, guitarist, record label owner, and disc jockey. He is best known as the singer and guitarist for the rock band Rocket from the Crypt, which he formed and fronted for the entirety of its career from 1990 to 2005.
KGB-FM is a commercial radio station licensed to San Diego, California. It is owned and operated by iHeartMedia and broadcasts in a classic rock music format. KGB-FM's studios are located in San Diego's Kearny Mesa neighborhood on the northeast side, and the transmitter is located in East San Diego east of Balboa Park.
Gregory Page is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.
David Allen "Davey" Faragher is an American bass guitarist from Redlands, California. Faragher's career took off and received critical notice as a founding member of the nineties band Cracker, and his subsequent work with John Hiatt's band, and The Imposters, the backing band for Elvis Costello since 2001. In 2015, Faragher joined Richard Thompson's Electric Trio for Thompson's Still album and US tour.
Bernard R. "Buddy Blue" Seigal was an American musician, music critic and writer, who performed and often wrote under his stage name Buddy Blue. He was a founding member of The Beat Farmers, a Southern California rock band that blended country roots music and rock 'n' roll. As a music critic, he was known for his straightforward style of critique that often used colorful language and original metaphors to either praise or lambaste musicians whom Seigal liked or disliked.
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is an uptempo, strophic story song written by American folk rock singer Jim Croce. Released as part of his 1973 album Life and Times, the song was a No. 1 hit for him, spending two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1973. Billboard ranked it as the No. 2 song for 1973.
Maurice T. Muehleisen was an American musician, songwriter, and artist known for his studio work, live accompaniment, and impact on the music of Jim Croce. Muehleisen died in the same plane crash that killed Croce.
"Time in a Bottle" is a song by singer-songwriter Jim Croce. He wrote the lyrics after his wife Ingrid told him she was pregnant in December 1970. It appeared on Croce's 1972 ABC debut album You Don't Mess Around with Jim and was featured in the 1973 ABC made-for-television movie She Lives! After he was killed in a plane crash in September 1973, the song was aired frequently on radio, and demand for a single release built. The single of "Time in a Bottle" became Croce's second, and final track to reach number one in the United States.
Photographs & Memories: His Greatest Hits is the first greatest hits album by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, released on September 26, 1974, by ABC Records. The album was Croce's second posthumous release following his 1973 death in an airplane crash.
Thomas Picardo Jr., known professionally as Tommy West, was an American record producer and singer-songwriter.
Ingrid Croce is an American author, singer-songwriter, and restaurateur. Between 1964 and 1971, Ingrid performed as a duo with her husband, Jim Croce, releasing the album Jim & Ingrid Croce in 1969.
"Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)" is a 1972 song written by Jim Croce. Croce's record was released on August 23, 1972. It was the second single released from Croce's album You Don't Mess Around with Jim. It reached a peak of number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1972, spending twelve weeks on the chart.
Home Recordings: Americana is an album by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, released in 2003. This album is a compilation of unreleased tracks and demos. This compilation was the first new material of Jim Croce's work released since 1973. The album also contains liner notes written by Croce's son A.J. Croce and his wife Ingrid Croce. The material was recorded in 1967 at his Pennsylvania kitchen table on an old Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder.
"I Got a Name" is a 1973 single recorded by Jim Croce with lyrics by Norman Gimbel and music by Charles Fox. It was the first single from his album of the same title and also Croce's first posthumous single, released the day after his death in a plane crash on September 20, 1973. The song reached a peak of #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending 17 weeks on the chart. It also hit #3 on the Cash Box Top 100.
"Age" is a song written and recorded by Jim Croce and his wife Ingrid. The song was first recorded in 1969 on their self-titled album. Jim Croce would record the song again, this time without Ingrid, for his final album I Got a Name in 1973. Jerry Reed's cover of the song was released as a single in 1980 on his tribute album to Croce, and it peaked at 36 on the Billboard country chart.
"Surfin' U.S.A." is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys, credited to Chuck Berry and Brian Wilson. It is a rewritten version of Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" set to new lyrics written by Wilson and an uncredited Mike Love. The song was released as a single on March 4, 1963, backed with "Shut Down". It was then placed as the opening track on their album of the same name.
SALSWING! is the sixth studio album by the Panamian singer Rubén Blades and Roberto Delgado & Orquesta, released on April 16, 2021, through Rubén Blades Productions. It was produced by Roberto Delgado and features songs by Blades like "Paula C" as well as salsa songs and jazz standards such as "Pennies from Heaven" and "The Way You Look Tonight".
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