A.J. Croce Croce Plays Croce Thursday, February 6, 2020; 7:30 Pm
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A.J. Croce Croce Plays Croce Thursday, February 6, 2020; 7:30 pm BIO Listen to A.J. Croce’s albums and it’s clear that he holds an abiding love for all kinds of music – Blues, Soul, Pop, Jazz, and Rock n’ Roll. It is readily apparent too that people love Croce’s diverse approach to music. His nine albums have all charted, and done so on an impressive array of charts: Top 40, Blues, Americana, Jazz, Independent, College, and Radio 1, to name a few. The Nashville-based singer/ songwriter also has landed 18 singles on variety of Top 20 charts. A virtuoso piano player, Croce toured with B.B. King and Ray Charles before reaching the age of 21, and, over his career, he has performed with a wide range of musicians, Photo: Joshua Black Wilkins from Willie Nelson to the Neville Brothers; Bela Fleck to Ry Cooder. A.J. has also co-written songs with such formidable A.J. Croce performs Croce Plays Croce, a special night of tunesmiths as Leon Russell, Dan Penn, Robert Earl Keen music featuring a complete set of classics by his late and multi-Grammy winner Gary Nicholson. father Jim Croce, some of his own tunes, and songs that influenced both him and his father. This special event The late, great New Orleans piano man, and Croce hero, features such timeless songs as “Operator,” “You Don’t Allen Toussaint might have described A.J. most succinctly Mess Around with Jim,” “Time in a Bottle,” (a song written for when he proclaimed: “In such a crowded music universe A.J.), “Rapid Roy," (The Stock Car Boy), and “Lovers Cross," it is a pleasure to witness triple uniqueness: pianist, to name a few. Throughout the evening, A.J. speaks on his songwriter, singer and at such a level, and who does he musical connection to his father, painting a picture for the sound like? The answer is himself … A.J. Croce.” audience of family, artistry, and memory. A.J. Croce approaches music with a great curiosity, and he Jim Croce was an American folk singer with a short-lived is continually on the lookout to expand his artistic experiences. professional recording and touring career, and decades of “I’m always trying to push to create new music that posthumous fame as one of the greatest songwriters and incorporates what I love into something new.” A.J.’s last two artists ever, with sales surpassing 50 million records, albums epitomize his philosophy. Croce, who self- including three #1 songs and 10 Top 10 hits. produced several of his albums, constructed 2014’s Twelve Tales around two songs he recorded with six celebrated A.J. Croce’s 25-year touring and recording career has producers with the late “Cowboy” Jack Clement (Johnny produced nine studio albums that have been released via Cash, Elvis Presley), Mitchell Froom (Los Lobos, Crowded both major and independent labels, and have charted 18 House), Tony Berg (Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan), Kevin Killen Top 20 singles and all nine albums on the radio including on (Elvis Costello, Peter Gabriel), Greg Cohen (Tom Waits, John Top 40, Americana, and Blues. A virtuoso piano player, Croce Zorn), and Toussaint (Dr. John, Lee Dorsey). has toured with such esteemed artists as Willie Nelson, Lenny Kravitz, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and B.B. King. A.J.’s For his most recent release, Just Like Medicine, he turned to latest album project Just Like Medicine, out on Compass Muscle Shoals legend producer/songwriter Dan Penn, and Records, features Vince Gill and Steve Cropper, and was an all-star backing crew that included Steve Cropper, Vince produced by Muscle Shoals legend Dan Penn. Gill, David Hood, Colin Linden, Bryan Owings, The Muscle Shoals Horns, and The McCrary Sisters to create sublime soul music, which ABC News praised as sounding “like it was crafted with the influence of greats like Van Morrison, AUXILIARY PAGE 62 2019-2020 PROGRAM GUIDE www.harriscenter.net A.J. Croce continued Croce Plays Croce Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello in mind.” as well as enjoying that he can keep the shows fresh and exciting because he has the flexibility to change up the set One Just Like Medicine’s highlight is “The Heart That Makes list each time out. Me Whole,” which Croce co-wrote with Leon Russell. A.J. had been friends and collaborated with Russell for a number Just Like Medicine features the previously unreleased Jim of years, and they had a rather unique songwriting Croce song, “The Name of the Game.” The choice to cover it partnership. Russell would have A.J. come up with the music wasn’t A.J.’s but producer Dan Penn’s, who picked the tune and sing or hum the melody to Russell, who would then to record without knowing who had written it. A.J.’s moving compose the lyrics. A renowned pianoman in his own right, performance reveals the common rootsy musical territory Russell called Croce his “favorite New Orleans piano player.” that father and son share. On the recording, Colin Linden plays the same guitar that Jim Croce wrote the song on. Croce’s deep love for music is understandable considering that his mother, Ingrid, was a singer/songwriter as was his A.J. also did a cover of the Jim Croce hit “I Got A Name” in father, the late Jim Croce. He never knew his father, who 2018 for a Goodyear Tires ad that honored race car driver died in a tragic plane crash just before his son’s second Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s retirement. Over the years, A.J. also birthday. A.J., who started playing piano at a young age, has written several tunes for commercials, including ones purposely avoided his father’s music in order to establish for Toyota, Coca Cola, and Levi’s. his own identity as a musician. While admitting he probably could have fared quite well simply covering his father’s A.J. Croce’s family musical legacy is just part of his very songs, A.J. is very glad he didn’t. “It was more important unique life story. Born outside of Philadelphia, A.J. moved becoming great at what I did than having immediate with his mother and father to San Diego when he was two. success, and I was lucky that people dug what I was doing.” Around the age of four, he went blind due to horrific physical abuse from his mother’s then-boyfriend. A.J. was hospitalized A.J.’s relationship with his father’s music began changing for half a year and was totally blind in both eyes for six around a dozen years ago, when he began digitizing his fa- years. It was during this time that he started playing piano, ther’s tapes. One old cassette contained a bar performance inspired by blind pianists like Ray Charles and Stevie of Jim Croce playing blues tunes that had influenced him. Wonder. Croce, who regained sight in his left eye when he These were deep-cuts by folks like Mississippi John Hurt, was ten, went on to spend his early teen years performing Blind Blake, Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry, and A.J. was including at his mother’s establishment, Croce’s Jazz Bar. amazed since these songs were the ones that he had been playing since he was 12. “It gave me chills,” he admits, In addition to his Jazz, Blues and Soul roots, A.J. was hearing his dad play Fats Waller’s “You’re Not The Only influenced by the British sound of the 60s and the mod Oyster In The Stew,” because A.J. had played that obscure aesthetic. Along with playing around Southern California, Waller gem at his first audition. in the summers he went to London and played in pubs, in pursuit of connecting to that era. He said “it was sort of like Discovering that “he was playing stuff I played myself” chasing a ghost.” He did find the great songwriters of that helped A.J. to connect more deeply with his father’s time in the 80s like Elvis Costello, Squeeze and XTC. music. A talented multi-instrumentalist, A.J. learned his father’s songs by playing them on the guitar. He did this When A.J. was 16, the fabled blues piano man Floyd the old-fashion way by listening to the recordings because Dixon (of “Hey Bartender” fame) took him under his wing. He there were no Jim Croce chord books. He came away a bit would open up for Dixon and then the two would end their surprised and quite impressed with just how sophisticated gigs playing old Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons boogie the guitar parts were to these songs. woogie piano duels. Songwriter Mae Axton (best known for co-writing “Heartbreak Hotel”) was so impressed by Croce In the past couple years, A.J. has begun periodically that she took the then-17-year-old to Nashville to meet performing a Croce Plays Croce concert, where he does with the legendary “Cowboy” Jack Clement at his studio. Jim Croce songs, his own tunes, and songs that influenced A.J. recalls seeing Jerry Lee Lewis walking out as he was the two of them. He loves seeing “the joy it brings audiences,” walking in, and that Elvis Presley’s band were hanging out AUXILIARY PAGE 63 2019-2020 PROGRAM GUIDE www.harriscenter.net A.J. Croce continued Croce Plays Croce on the studio’s couch. A.J. spent several hours in the studio that day, and would reunite with Clement years later to record tracks for his Twelve Tales album.