Disclaimer. I’d never known about Jim Croce until this television commercial for The Very Best of Jim Croce album dropped in the early ‘80s. I, like many Gen X kids, was immediately fascinated by the songs that were played during the commercial. Especially “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”. I was also, like others of my generation, shocked when I was told that Croce died at the age of 30 from a plane crash. He’d just become really famous and successful right before he was killed.
Through the years, this commercial would pop up, and then I’d hear a few of Croce’s songs on Adult Contemporary radio stations in the 1980s and 1990s. Each time, I’d get happy that I was enjoying a Croce tune, and then I’d get sad, knowing his ultimate fate. Now that I’m older, I smile way more than I used to when it comes to Croce’s songs, because he left us a hell of a catalog. I also beam because I remember the times I’d sing along to the commercial below, line for line. A long dead folk rock musician’s television spot still has me in a headlock.
Only Bad, Bad Jim Croce could do that.
