My earliest memory of hearing Jim Croce's name was watching some awards show with my parents some time in 1974, where Ingrid Croce came on to accept an award for her late husband.  I don't know what the award was, and I can't recall what it was for.  I only remember I heard my mother comment that he'd only won because he had died.  Croce was not an artist played in my house because we listened pretty much only to country music, and at that time, I didn't know of the tight connection between rock, folk, and country.  I did know the song "Bad Bad Leroy Brown," but didn't know who the singer was.   

I later discovered Croce's music in high school, when a friend of mine lent me "Photographs and Memories."  By that time I already knew the song "Time in a Bottle," and I fell in love with Croce's liquid-gold voice and warm lyrics.  I still didn't think of him as a country singer.  Folk-pop, at best, but as music has evolved, that "folk pop" Croce sang has become pure Americana, music which is at once folk-blues-country-rock and as much a part of one genre as it is the other.

With this recording, Croce's wife Ingred and their son, A.J., unearthed and packaged up some reel-to-reel tapes to present "Home Recordings: Americana."   It's fifteen songs, the very first unreleased Croce material to surface in 30 years.  The sound isn't perfect.  Many of the tunes have a scratchy, old-timey feel to them.  It's definitely not polished and produced.  It's merely a man sitting at his kitchen table with his guitar just singing songs he likes - some are recording demos, and some may have just been for fun.  And as I listened, I discovered something I hadn't realized before.  To my surprise, I realized that Jim Croce was, indeed, a country music singer.

Hearing Jim's voice sing old country classics like "Cigarettes, Whiskey, and Wild Wild Women" and "In The Jailhouse Now" is a real treat.  His take on the Harlan Howard-penned/Johnny Cash classic "The Wall" is amazing.  He gives us his renditions of Lefty Frizzell's "Mom And Dad's Waltz," Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road" (with original, non P.C. lyrics) and Haggard's "Mama Tried."  Along with these are old-time blues numbers "Nobody Loves A Fat Girl," "You Oughta See Pickles Now" and "Who Will Buy The Wine."

One of the great tragedies of the music world is that it lost Jim Croce just as he was about to break through as a true superstar.  I now know my parents were wrong.  Croce didn't win whatever award it was just because of his passing.  This man was a genius, and it's impossible to say where he would have take his music as the 70's and 80's moved along.  Into rock?  Or maybe he might have gone further country.  As is, he is forever preserved in amber; the artist who gave us "Time in a Bottle" is trapped there himself, eternally 30 years old and poised on the brink of stardom, but legendary because of an untimely plane crash and a mournful "might have been."  But his talent is powerfully clear and the strength of these recordings is not diminished by the years nor the archaic recording media. 

For those who love pure roots music at its best, this really is a must have album.  It's beautiful, timeless, and as simple and pure as music can get.

Standout Tracks: "Living With The Blues" "Cigarettes, Whiskey, and Wild Wild Women"  "In The Jailhouse Now" "The Wall" "Mama Tried"

Final Word: It's raw, it's unpolished, and it's an old dirt road to the past.  It's not for everyone, but those that like it will find it remarkable.

Kathy Coleman TakeCountryBack January 2004