Have You Heard Jim Croce Live? If Not, You're Missing Out...

Another Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and I’m left with the residual effects of the holiday. All this warm fuzziness puts me in the mood to watch sappy movies and listen to heart-rending love songs. Few people managed to pour as much pathos into one song as Jim Croce. Working at the mall, I was struck by the frequency with which his songs came on the mall radio. For a man whose life and career were cut tragically short, he made an awfully big impact. Physically distinctive with a chiseled face, handlebar mustache and mop of curly black hair, he stood out even more for his quiet lyricism and earnest musicality. He had a special skill for weaving compelling narratives within the space of just a few minutes. His songs are filled with colorful characters and searing emotions. They are by turns raucous and melancholy, but all are artistic achievements, and it’s sad to contemplate what Croce might have contributed had he been with us all this time. I suspect he would have wound up one of the heavy hitters, in a league with the most revered singers and songwriters of our century. That he approached that status in so few years is a tribute to his talent.

Have You Heard Jim Croce Live is an opportunity to not only hear but see Croce in action. It’s a particular treasure because so few of his fans had the chance to see him live. The DVD includes performances of most of his major hits. The glaring omission is I Got a Name, the poignant anthem of self-affirmation whose stirring strings send shivers up my spine. I don’t know whether this is due to copyright issues or the fact that it’s a heavily orchestrated number, which might sound odd with this concert’s sparse two-guitar accompaniment, or something else entirely, but I wish it were here as well. Aside from that, all my favorites are here, from You Don’t Mess Around With Jimand Bad, Bad Leroy Brown to Operator and Time in a Bottle. The list of songs is almost identical to Photographs and Memories, but for the missing song and three additional tracks: Next Time, This Time, Speedball Tucker and The Hard Way Every Time. There’s an incredible intimacy to this DVD. It’s just two quiet guys with guitars who are happy to share their music with us. The other guy is Maury Muelheisen, whose guitar work and vocals blend perfectly with Croce’s. They come across as old, dear friends, and Muelheisen doesn’t seem to mind playing second fiddle at all. He’s just glad to be up there supporting his buddy and helping his songs sound as beautiful as possible. There’s genuine gentleness and affection in Croce’s delivery, and his soft-spoken storytelling makes us feel as though we are just feet away from him and he is reciting his tales just for us.

The presentation kicks off with the recording of the wistful Photographs and Memories, which is accompanied by pictures of Croce in all stages of life. This technique is employed again at the halfway point, with I’ll Have to Say I’ll Love You in a Song, which features pictures of him with his wife Ingrid, and the conclusion, Time in a Bottle, which is illustrated with photos of him with the son who would eventually have to get to know him through his music just like the rest of us. As these are studio versions, they have a fuller sound to them than the other songs do, but the style is much the same. The acoustics on this concert are of very high quality, as are the visuals. I’m so glad that, after so many years, the Croces saw fit to share with us this gift.

Peppier numbers include radio favorites You Don’t Mess Around With Jim and Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, both engaging stories about guys too big for their britches who strut around town like they own the place until someone comes along and knocks them down a couple pegs. The latter, incidentally, is revisited in a special feature as a kitschy cartoon on the Sonny and Cher Show. Other lively tunes include Roller Derby Queen, Speedball Tucker and Rapid Roy. Most songs of this type were inspired by people Croce actually met, and it’s interesting to hear that back story, sometimes from Croce himself, who comes across as a completely unassuming and natural storyteller, and sometimes from his wife or son on the commentary track. His powers of observation and imagination were obviously keen as his songs are filled with details that allow us to visualize his character clearly. From words tattooed into arms to types of cars driven, he had all the background information worked out and was eager to share it with his audience. He sounds like a real tough guy when he sings about Jim and Leroy, but that’s just him getting into the character of the song. It’s neat to be able to see how he presented himself as he sang them, with a big grin plastered on his face, apparently having the time of his life.

Quieter tunes include Operator, I’ll Have to Say I’ll Love You in a Song and Time in a Bottle, which are other mall radio favorites, as well as the melancholy New York’s Not My Home and Lover’s Cross. Irene Croce provides some interesting background on Operator, which straddles the two types of songs Croce tended to write. It’s sad and thoughtful, but it’s also a clear narrative, which makes it something of an anomaly, though other slower songs have traces of narrative. Lover’s Cross strikes me as another song based on someone else’s situation; it was one of the last songs Croce wrote, and he had been happily married for quite some time. There’s an immediacy to it that suggests a current experience, and obviously it wouldn’t have been his. It’s a fun one to try to sing because it jumps around so much. It’s like climbing a staircase but hopping down a stair or two whenever you ascend a bit, which is appropriate given the state of conflict in which the narrator finds himself: “For every time that we spent laughing, there were two times that I cried.” Most affecting for me, though, is Time in a Bottle. It would have been nice to see him performing it, but as a backdrop to pictures of the family Croce left behind, it is incredibly poignant. This is always the song I most associate with Croce. It has such a prophetic quality to it, almost as though he knew when he wrote it that he only had a few years left. Time passes too quickly for us all, but when his hourglass shattered there was so much more to fill that bottom half with. Yet there was a fullness to his life, however brief it was, and his widow and son must take some comfort in the fact that his music does seem to have eluded that problem of time.

A word about his lyrics. They are lovely and lyrical yet always completely accessible. They weave odes to the common man and plumb the depths of his soul. While the story-songs are entertaining and have mass appeal, the more introspective numbers explore feelings and situations that most folks can relate to. Croce had a very unique style of delivery, which means that the words to his songs tend to look a little strange on paper, at least the bouncy ones. He often eschewed articles and the letter “s” at the end of words, a grammatical compromise that lends those songs a staccato feel. The slower melodies are more legato and give the impression that he is baring his soul for all to see.

There is much about Croce’s personality that we can glean from this footage, though little we wouldn’t have guessed at already. In the space of about an hour, we see a man who was funny, tender, introspective, observant, personable, giving and humble, and though we’re left with sadness that this gentle talent was taken so long before his time, what lingers even longer is gratitude that these moments were captured and shared with the fans for whom Croce had such affection and appreciation. His songs, and the spirit that he poured into them, truly are timeless.