The Late, Great Jim Croce (1943-73)

For some reason, I started humming the lyrics to an old Jim Croce song this morning. I haven't thought of Jim in too many years. He died young tragically. Don't so many of the good ones? His plane crashed near Natchitoches, Louisiana, on September 20, 1973. He was all of 30. "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle" were probably his best known folky rock songs. They got plenty of airplay on the FM rock radio stations. I bought an 8-track tape of one of his albums. It got mangled in the tape player. I hated 8-tracks with a vengeance. But that's another story altogether. Jim struck me as a cool dude who was down to earth and approachable. I would have loved to sit down at a table with our beers and just shoot the breeze with him. Here's the link to the first song I ever heard by Jim Croce. Its title "Operator" pretty much sums up what's going on in the ballad. He mentions phone calls costing you a dime. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Phone calls had jumped to 25 cents by then, as I recall it. But who gives a toss about an extra 15 cents, right? Enjoy.   

Click to hear for Jim Croce singing his first hit "Operator"