CoronaVinyl Day 82 (Pennsylvania): Life and Times by Jim Croce

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Yesterday's CoronaVinyl category was Pennsylvania, and I went with singer-songwriter Jim Croce, who was born and raised in and around Philadelphia.  His mustache was one of the strongest in an already strong field of early '70s 'staches.  I'm trying my best to get to that point while I'm working from home.  

After graduating from Villanova in 1965, Croce got married and worked various odd jobs while trying to make it as a musician, first with his wife as a duo, and later as a solo artist after their son was born in 1971.  Even though he only put out three studio albums as a solo artist, Croce made a big splash pretty quickly, and was well on his way to becoming one of the biggest acts early '70s.  Sadly, Croce and five others were killed in a plane crash in September 1973 in Louisiana when the pilot clipped a tree on takeoff.  All three of his albums reached the Top 10 of the Billboard album charts, with 1972's You Don't Mess Around With Jim going to #1, 1973's Life and Times going to #7, and 1973's posthumously released I Got a Name going to #2.  He also had 8 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including 5 Top 10s and 2 #1s ("Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle").  Croce always had an accessible, working class quality to his music, so even if you don't necessarily like soft rock or folk rock, you might still like Jim Croce's music.  His voice has always been soothing to me.

I have both You Don't Mess Around With Jim and Life and Times on vinyl.  I decided on Life and Times for no real reason other than to highlight "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," which earned Croce two Grammy Awards in 1973, one for "Pop Male Vocalist" and one for "Record of the Year."

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Careful Man"
"Careful Man" is kind of a downhome folk song sung from the perspective of a man coming to grips with the responsibilities that come with getting older.  He has accepted that he has had to grow up and become a "careful man," but he lets you know that he used to be a fighter and a lover.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"
If you know any Jim Croce song, it's probably "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown."  It's certainly a classic, and I think it's a great representation of Croce's ability to spin blue collar tales into great songs.  The song tells the tale of a badass from the South Side of Chicago named Leroy Brown who is large in stature, has multiple cars, likes to gamble, has plenty of ladyfriends, and likes to put his diamond ring "on everybody's nose," but he ends up hitting on a married woman, whose husband finds Leroy and beats the shit out of him, leaving him looking like "jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone."  It spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and ended up as the #2 song on the Billboard Year End chart for 1973, behind Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree."  The song is said to be the inspiration for professional wrestlers Junkyard Dog and Bad Leroy Brown.  In addition, it inspired Freddie Mercury to write the song "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" for Queen's 1974 album Sheer Heart Attack.