A.J. Croce
Bayou Music Center
December 10, 2023
The tour is dubbed “Croce Plays Croce” so, as expected, A.J. Croce spent lots of time during last night’s Bayou Music Center show not only performing Jim Croce’s biggest hits, but speaking to them. These monologues between songs were revealing about A.J. as an artist as much as they filled in some gaps for fans of Jim, whose career was brief but lasting. Croce the elder’s songs have endured long past his death in 1973 at the age of 30 and, as Croce the younger shared, they impacted his own career. But, echoing sentiments he shared with the Houston Press last week, A.J. said his dad influenced him most in a way some fans of the father and the son may not have anticipated.
“My father’s music was influential to me, of course,” he told the crowd, “but it was his record collection that inspired me to be a musician. And I think it was his record collection that inspired him to be a musician. It was so deep, there was so much diversity in there.”
That’s how Jim Croce passed something integral along to his son, who was only two years-old when his dad died. Last night’s show proved that A.J. – whose own career has spanned 30-plus years and 10 albums of material – has cherished that legacy and that record collection, filled with artists like Sam Cooke, Woody Guthrie, Otis Redding, Skip James, The Rolling Stones, Bessie Smith and many others. Whether playing songs like “Operator (That’s Not the Way it Feels)” or “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” from his father’s catalog, or his own compositions like “So Much Fun,” A.J. put his personal stamp on the songs. And, his stamp is pretty impressive, folks.
Let’s start at the most obvious place, the piano, where A.J. started music when he lost his sight as a kid. He turned to Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder for inspiration and his playing skills today are truly something to witness. Many times he shook the room with roadhouse pounding on the keys, turning Bayou Music Center into a backroom bust-out joint, even on songs like “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” the show opener, and “Roller Derby Queen,” it’s follow-up. Both were written by Jim and played on guitar but A.J.’s interpretations had him on the piano bench and breathing fresh, rocking life into these American classics.
That’s how the night went, A.J. singing his dad’s tunes in his own husky, jazz-tinged voice rather than mimicking at the mic like bad karaoke, bouncing from keys to guitars for this or that song. There were cover songs of artists who were as influential to A.J. as his own dad, like Billy Preston. A Skip James tune sent us all to church on a Sunday night and was a highlight for fans of A.J..’s piano playing. It all made for a highly entertaining evening of music spanning the last half of the 20th century.
Along the way, Croce shared stories behind some of his dad’s big hits like back in 1965, when “my father was stationed in Fort Dix in New Jersey and he was waiting to use the payphone behind his fellow soldiers and it was a phone booth without a door on it. The funny thing about being a songwriter is that you’re always looking for a story, you’re always looking for a good, simple story and there’s nothing better than someone else’s tragedy. I know it sounds harsh or insensitive to say it but other people’s tragedies are better than your own.”
Overhearing a fellow soldier’s misfortune informed “Operator (That’s Not the Way it Feels)” from Jim’s breakthrough album You Don’t Mess Around with Jim.
“In 18 months, he recorded and toured three albums and everything you know of his was written in that 18 months,” A.J. said about Jim. “Before then he played other people’s music because that’s what people wanted to hear. And I guess it still is,” he said to laughs.
After several songs, he opened “the request line” and audience members shouted for the hits and some deep cuts like “Speedball Tucker” and “One Less Set of Footsteps.” No matter the song, they were keenly played by an all-star backing band including drummer Gary Mallaber (Van Morrison/Steve Miller Band), bassist/singer David Barard (Dr. John), and guitarist James Pennebaker (Delbert McClinton), along with background singers Jackie Wilson and Katrice Donaldson.
Croce eventually got around to sharing the story of a song he penned. “So Much Fun” was written post-pandemic. In telling its story he also shared that despite a life of hardship – losing his dad as a kid, losing his eyesight, surviving a family fire as an adolescent, losing his wife as an adult – he’s learned to keep rollin’ on. When the pandemic hit, he tried to make the best of it, as we all did.
“I’ll tell you, during that time I got to watch old movies, read great books. I brushed up on my French and my Italian. I bought a pair of tap shoes,” he said and noted that “if you’re in a really dark place in your life and you have to decide which type of liquor you want to buy, I recommend a pair of tap shoes, because it’s nearly impossible to walk around the house with tap shoes on and not laugh at yourself. Sincerely, you feel pretty ridiculous. It’s impossible not to laugh.
“Whether it’s laughing at yourself or just the idea of what you’re doing it’s pretty amazing. It pulls you out of any kind of funk you’re in. That’s my recommendation. I figure if you can’t laugh at yourself you have no business laughing at anyone else.”
Personal Bias: I was eight years-old when Jim Croce died and my dad was a huge fan of his music, especially the album You Don’t Mess Around with Jim. I can sing every lyric to every song still to this day, though I started way back when with Pops, the two of us sitting on the orange shag carpet of the family living room and him encouraging me to learn guitar.
I never learned to play but it’s no exaggeration to say I wouldn’t love music or words nearly as much as I do if not for Jim Croce. When I interviewed A.J., I led with the story of me and my dad and how that thread moved through us to my own music-making kids and he appreciated the story and was gracious listening to it. Hearing songs like “Time in a Bottle” or “Photographs and Memories” last night, it was like Pops never left, though it’s been nearly 20 years since he passed. Fathers and sons, all in one room together last night, listening to the songs that connected us.
The Crowd: Older folks get different treatment at venues. We just do. The venue’s employees were so polite and super-friendly. Last night, perhaps also happy about the early ending to the night (10 o’clock!) Bayou Music Center’s employees wished us safe travels and even told us to “stay warm.”
Random Notebook Dump: This story from A.J. is a) a long set up to a punchline where he questions the sort of party a kid (him) might have survived where Rod Stewart was the most sober babysitter on hand; and, b) for Houston Press music writer Tom Richards, who first told me about the song “Ball of Kirriemuir.”
A.J. said when he was a kid his mother Ingrid (also a musician) would sing to him at bedtime and the songs of choice were bawdy stuff for grown folks. She sang them because Jim “loved a good dirty song,” A.J. shared. So, when he was young, mom would sing “Ball of Kirriemuir” at bedtime because, late in his career, Jim would finish shows with the song.
“If you’re not familiar with it, it is a mid-18th century, probably from the late 1740s, it is a dirty drinking song about an orgy which took place in this small village of Kirriemuir, Scotland. I know for modern listeners this is gonna be quite shocking because back in the good old days they had dirty lyrics and they sang nasty songs.”
The song is about all 80 villagers of Kirriemuir who attend the orgy and what they do or have done to them. Therefore, 80 unique verses interspersed with the chorus which goes “Singin’ balls to your partner, your ass against the wall/If ya never been had on a Saturday night, ya never been had at all..” So, please feel free to think of this song the next time you’re reading Tom’s Concert Watch on Wednesdays. Thanks.
A.J. Croce Set List
You Don’t Mess Around with Jim
Roller Derby Queen
Better Day (Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee cover)
Box #10
Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)
Nothing Can Change This Love (Sam Cooke cover)
Nothing From Nothing (Billy Preston cover)
Rollin’ On
The Heart that Makes Me Whole
Look At the People Standing at the Judgement (Skip James cover)
Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues
Speedball Tucker
New York’s Not My Home
I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song
Photographs and Memories
One Less Set of Footsteps
Rapid Roy (That Stock Car Boy)
Hey Tomorrow
Lover’s Cross
So Much Fun
Stay With Me (Faces cover)
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
I Got a Name
Time in a Bottle
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
