James Joseph "Jim" Croce, Lyndell, Chester County

 St. Patrick's Day is my wedding anniversary; Kevin and I are hitting a big milestone this year, 25 years of married nonsense, so we're taking the day for ourselves. Two days later, we leave for Zenkaikon. My annual panic is in full swing. I have my own three presentations to give, plus it's the convention's 20th anniversary and I'm part of the group running events related to that (we have our own museum!) and I'm just a busy, busy girl. To that end, therefore, there will be no blog post next week.

Yesterday, meanwhile, was my best friend Andrea's birthday. We both had the day off, and when I asked how she wanted to spend it, she surprised me by outright requesting that we take a road trip to collect some markers for the blog. I wasn't about to say no, of course, so off we went. This was a marker for which I had wanted to attend the dedication ceremony when it was placed a couple years ago, but I wasn't able to make it for whatever reason.

The marker stands in front of the former Croce home at
3 Highspire Street, just off PA 282

Jim Croce's first song to cross my path was "Time in a Bottle," which was used in one sketch on The Muppet Show and which I myself sang in my high school choir back in the ancient 1990s. I'm actually pretty terrible with matching voices to names, though, so I heard a number of his other songs throughout the years without knowing who was singing them. I wasn't even aware, until I started working on this post, that he was one of my grandfather's favorite musicians. (In my defense, the one Pop talked about the most was Frank Sinatra.)

I also, and this is a bit of a recurring theme in a number of my posts, never knew that he was a Pennsylvanian.

Jim was born in South Philadelphia on January 10, 1943. He and his brother Richard were the sons of James and Flora (Babusci)Croce, and they attended Upper Darby High School on the outskirts of the city. Jim grew up listening to all kinds of music. As a child he played the accordion, entertaining his relatives at family gatherings, and he began playing the guitar as a young man. He was the first member of his family to attend college, enrolling in Villanova University to study psychology with a minor in German. He also worked as a DJ at the university's radio station, and performed with the Villanova Singers and the Villanova Spires, who were known off campus as the Coventry Lads.

At the age of 20, in 1963, Jim was invited to help judge a "hootenanny band competition" in Philadelphia. (I looked it up so you don't have to - a hootenanny band is "an informal, often acoustic, musical group rooted in 1950s/60s folk culture that specializes in lively, participatory, and sometimes comedic sing-along performances.") According to his bio on the official Jim Croce website, the singer for the winning group was a 16-year-old girl named Ingrid Jacobson. Jim and Ingrid apparently had a love-at-first-sight meeting and remained together for the rest of his life, marrying in 1966 after he had graduated from Villanova. Ingrid was Jewish, so Jim, though having been raised Catholic, converted to Judaism and their wedding was a traditional Jewish ceremony. He also enlisted in the Army National Guard so that he wouldn't be drafted for the brewing Vietnam War. He spent four months on active duty, leaving a week after the couple returned from their honeymoon, and apparently had such a miserable time of things that he had to go through basic training twice because he didn't like authority much.

By the time of the wedding, despite having his degree in psychology, Jim was beginning to pursue music much more seriously. As a wedding gift, Jim's parents gave the couple $500 on the condition that it be spent on making an album. This was actually a ploy. James and Flora didn't want to be unsupportive of their son's dreams, but they fully expected that the album would fail, Jim would become discouraged, and he'd settle down into a career that actually used his degree. Their money went to pressing 500 copies of their son's debut album Facets, and much to everyone's surprise, it was a success. Every copy sold. He and Ingrid often performed in coffee houses, colleges, and bars as a singing duo, starting out with hits by other people and then progressing to writing their own songs. They released a joint album in 1969 called Jim and Ingrid Croce, but it didn't sell well. They decided to retire from performing, and settled into the quiet farmhouse seen here in Lyndell, just north of Downingtown in Chester County. (I've seen both Lyndell and Downingtown used for the address and also East Brandywine Township, so I included all three in the tags for this post.)

As the 1970s progressed, Jim supported their little household by doing odd jobs including driving truck, welding, working construction, and teaching guitar. Returning to Philadelphia, he did radio advertising. All the while, he continued playing and writing his music, and when Ingrid became pregnant in 1971, he decided to go full throttle in trying to make music his true profession. Adrian James "AJ" Croce came into the world in September of that year, and the next year, his dad signed a three-record deal with ABC Records. This picture of Jim is a public domain publicity photo they released as part of his contract. You Don't Mess Around With Jim and Life and Times were both released that year, and three singles received airplay. One of those was "Time in a Bottle," which he wrote for Ingrid and baby AJ. Jim started appearing on television and touring internationally. His star was on the rise, and his song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" hit the number one place on the American charts in July 1973. It was the only song which would reach that position during his lifetime. Unfortunately, despite his success, some bad business deals had left him without a lot of money.

A few weeks later, Jim went on a concert tour performing at various colleges in the southern United States. He was burned out from touring, and had moved with his family to San Diego, where he planned on taking a break after this tour in order to spend time with Ingrid and AJ and enjoy a fresh start. On Thursday, September 20th, he did a show at Northwestern Louisiana University. His next gig was the following evening in Sherman, Texas, so he boarded a plane after the concert along with four other passengers and the pilot, Robert Newton Elliott. The other passengers were Maurice Muehleisen, Jim's guitarist and close friend; Dennis Rast, his manager; Kenneth Dominick Cortese, a representative of the tour's agency; and George Stevens, a comedian who served as Jim's opening act. They never reached Texas. For reasons unknown, the plane failed to achieve sufficient height, and shortly after takeoff it crashed into a tree, killing everyone on board. 

Jim's body was returned to his native Pennsylvania and buried at Haym Salomon Memorial Park in Frazer, Chester County. His final album, I Got A Name, was released posthumously two weeks after the crash. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990, and his songs are still frequently given airplay even now, as well as being used in movies and television shows. The widowed Ingrid, who is still alive as of this post, became an activist, restauranteur, and author; she and her second husband, James Rock, published a biography of Jim in 2012. Son AJ, meanwhile, is a musician just like his dad, with a number of critically acclaimed albums to his name, including some covers of Jim's work. He lives in East Nashville, Tennessee, with his two children, having lost his wife to a rare illness in 2018. 

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Sources and Further Reading:

Official website of Jim Croce's work and legacy

Jim Croce's profile in the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Croce, Ingrid, and Jimmy Rock. I Got a Name: The Jim Croce Story. Da Capo, 2012.

Jim Croce at FindAGrave.com

James Joseph "Jim" Croce at the Historical Marker Database 

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.