Jim Croce: The Song He Released the Day After He Died

Jim Croce spent most of his career broke.

He drove trucks, poured concrete, and sang commercial jingles just to make rent.

Then two songs changed everything in the space of eighteen months.

He died before he found out how big they would get.

His next single reached record stores exactly one day after his death.

Most write-ups treat that as a footnote.

This one treats it as the whole story.

Jim Croce holding a cigar in a 1972 ABC Records publicity portrait

Jim Croce, ABC Records publicity portrait, 1972.

Image credit: ABC Records, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Working Years Nobody Remembers

Truck Routes, Job Sites, and Bar Gigs

Jim Croce was born January 10, 1943, in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He started on accordion at age five, then moved to guitar as a teenager.

By his twenties he was touring in a string of folk bands with little to show for it.

He drove a truck to cover rent between gigs.

He also took construction jobs and a brief stint teaching junior high school.

He sang commercial jingles and local radio spots for extra cash.

None of it paid enough to let him quit music, and music didn't pay enough to let him quit the rest of it either.

A Musical Partnership With His Wife Ingrid

Jim Croce met Ingrid Jacobson at a folk music party in the mid-1960s.

They married in 1966 and performed together as a duo for years afterward.

The pair released one album together before his solo career took shape.

It sold few copies and drew almost no outside attention.

Guitarist Maury Muehleisen joined him as a writing and touring partner around 1970.

Muehleisen's fingerpicked lead lines became the signature sound behind his voice and rhythm guitar.

1972: You Don't Mess Around With Jim Breaks Through

A Demo Tape Mailed to the Right People

Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen recorded a demo tape in early 1971.

They mailed it to producer Tommy West that March.

West played it for his production partner, Terry Cashman.

Both had their own small history in the music business and heard something real in the tape.

ABC Records signed him on the strength of it.

Three Songs From One Album

ABC released the album "You Don't Mess Around with Jim" in April 1972.

The title track told a comic story about a Chicago pool hustler and became his first real hit.

Billboard's 1972 year-end chart ranked it 68th for the year, after a run to number 8 on the Hot 100.

The same album carried "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)," which reached number 17 that October.

It also carried a quieter song tucked near the end of the tracklist, called "Time in a Bottle."

He had written that one two years earlier, the night he learned his wife Ingrid was pregnant.

He wrote it as a kind of letter to a son he hadn't met yet, Adrian James Croce, born in 1971.

Nobody released it as a single in 1972.

Nobody thought it needed to be one.

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown Sends Him to Number One

A Character Sketch Becomes His Biggest Hit Yet

His second album, "Life and Times," arrived in 1973.

Its lead single, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," told another one of his character sketches, this time about a Chicago tough guy who picks the wrong fight.

The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of July 21, 1973.

It held that spot the following week too.

Billboard's 1973 year-end recap ranked it second for the entire year.

It earned him two Grammy nominations.

For the first time in a decade of playing music, Jim Croce had real money and a real audience.

A Third Album Already in the Works

He didn't slow down to enjoy it.

He toured constantly through the summer of 1973, chasing the momentum while it lasted.

He had already recorded a third album's worth of songs, including a title track called "I Got a Name," written for the film "The Last American Hero."

That film had opened in theaters that July, with the song playing over its closing scenes.

Nobody outside his own circle knew he wouldn't live to see the album released under his own name.

September 20, 1973: The Crash in Natchitoches

A Small Plane, a Short Runway

Jim Croce played a concert at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, on September 20, 1973.

He boarded a chartered twin-engine plane afterward, headed for his next show.

The plane failed to clear a pecan tree at the end of the runway during takeoff.

It crashed instantly, killing everyone aboard.

He was 30 years old.

Five Others Lost the Same Night

Guitarist Maury Muehleisen died in the same crash.

So did comedian George Stevens, who had opened his shows that tour.

Manager Ken Cortese, tour manager Dennis Rast, and the pilot also died.

A federal jury later found the charter company's insurer liable for the crash in a bad-faith verdict, a ruling the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld on review.

The case remains one of the few Jim Croce stories with a formal legal record attached to it.

The Single That Shipped the Next Morning

ABC Records released "I Got a Name" as a single on September 21, 1973.

That was one day after Jim Croce died.

The single had already been scheduled for release, tied to that summer's release of "The Last American Hero."

Nobody moved the date up or down because of what had happened.

It simply arrived on schedule, one day too late for him to see it.

The song reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 17 weeks.

Radio stations that had booked interviews with him that same week ran tribute segments instead.

His label had a dead man's record climbing the charts and a living audience that didn't know yet how to process it.

Jim Croce's Real 1970s Chart Record

Billboard's own year-end and weekly data show exactly how far his music traveled after he died.

"You Don't Mess Around with Jim": reached number 8 on the Hot 100, ranked 68th on the 1972 year-end chart.
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown": two weeks at number one in July 1973, ranked 2nd on the 1973 year-end chart.
"Time in a Bottle": reached number one in late December 1973 and January 1974, ranked 24th on the 1974 year-end chart.
"I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song": reached number 9 in early 1974, ranked 85th on the 1974 year-end chart.
"I Got a Name": reached number 10 in late 1973, released the day after his death.

"Time in a Bottle" became his second number one only after ABC re-released it as a single that December, more than three months after he died.

"I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" followed a few weeks later, built around a real argument he'd once had with Ingrid where he couldn't find the right words and sang instead.

Three of his five charting singles reached the public only after he was gone.

See how his chart run compares to other acts of the decade with the Random Artist Picker.

Or explore the scene he came out of in our Folk Rock in the 70s post.

Test what you know about the era with the 70s Music Trivia Quiz.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did Jim Croce die?

Jim Croce died on September 20, 1973, when a chartered plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Natchitoches, Louisiana.

The plane failed to clear a pecan tree at the end of the runway following a concert at Northwestern State University.

The crash killed everyone aboard, including guitarist Maury Muehleisen.

He was 30 years old.

What is Jim Croce's most famous song?

Jim Croce's most famous song is "Time in a Bottle," a ballad he wrote in 1970 for his then-unborn son, Adrian James Croce.

It appeared as an album track in 1972 and was not released as a single until after his death.

ABC Records issued it that December, and it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1974.

Was I Got a Name released after Jim Croce died?

Jim Croce's single "I Got a Name" reached record stores on September 21, 1973, one day after his death in a plane crash.

The song had already been scheduled for release as the theme from the film "The Last American Hero."

It went on to reach number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 17 weeks.

How many number one songs did Jim Croce have?

Jim Croce had two number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, both released in his final year.

"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" topped the chart in July 1973, while he was still alive to see it happen.

"Time in a Bottle" reached number one that December and January, three months after his death in a plane crash.

What did Jim Croce do before he became famous?

Before his 1972 breakthrough, Jim Croce worked a string of day jobs to support his songwriting, including truck driving, construction work, and a brief stint teaching junior high school.

He also sang commercial jingles and local radio spots for extra income.

Producers Terry Cashman and Tommy West signed him to ABC Records in 1972 after hearing a demo tape.