Stage Talk with Rick Koster
Where every show has something to say.
AJ CROCE
For decades, A.J. Croce has built and enjoyed a terrific career as a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist whose distinctive original songs are alchemical wonders fused from pop, blues, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll and folk.
Oh, there’s also the fact he’s son of the late songwriter Jim Croce — but, until recently, the surname was the only thing the two shared in a commercial context.
A.J. Croce, an infant when his father died in a plane crash on tour, channeled his grief by diligently learning piano in a wide variety of styles wrenched from the ore of rural blues and R&B. He was blind for several years after suffering a beating from an abusive stepfather, and further looked to music as a life source.
His own career as a composer, performer and producer has flourished and, over the course of several albums and countless tours, A.J. Croce is a popular and critically established artist.
Only recently, then, did A.J. decide it was time — for himself as well as generations of fans — to explore his father’s work onstage with a clever and entertaining production called “Croce Plays Croce.” The tour arrives for a 7:30 p.m. Sunday presentation at the Garde, and includes live-band performances, anecdotes, video clips, a deep dive into Jim Croce’s songbook — and a few of A.J.’s tunes, as well.
Last week, A.J. called from Nashville to talk about “Croce Plays Croce,” his career, and his father. The conversation has been edited for clarity and space.
The Garde: Your father wrote amazing ballads, but he was also adept at what might be called story songs like “Bad Bad Leroy Brown,” “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” and many more. In a literary context, he almost seemed to be creating these witty, musical short stories — like Damon Runyon or O Henry if they had guitars. Does that make sense?
A.J.: Yeah, yeah, of course. I call them the character songs. I mean, there’s a touch of Will Rogers in there, and there’s Lieber and Stoller. And musically there’s all the R&B and rock and roll influences that you hear. It’s really diverse, you know, for such a small body of work in such a short period of time.
The Garde: “Time in a Bottle” is literally YOUR song in that your father wrote it about you. Can you share a few of your father’s songs that particularly resonate with you structurally or emotionally that maybe the rest of us who grew up hearing him on the radio would never put together?
A.J.: You know, that’s sort of tough because music is so much about emotion, how we feel in a given moment, and what our mood is. And of course, each day we wake up and feel like maybe hearing something different. And what we’re drawn to is maybe a little different today than it was yesterday.
I can tell you there are a lot of songs in his catalog that are powerful to me, you know? Not necessarily big hits, but just great songs. Recently, I’ve been listening to “Box #10,” “Lover’s Cross,” “Tomorrow’s Going to be a Brighter Day,” “Next Time, This Time” and “It Doesn’t Have to be That Way.”
And of course, I love the hits. The lyrics, the music, the storytelling … he was a great storyteller. He made heroes out of everyday people; characters who are universal in a way. They have a very timeless nature.
Garde: When you finally decided to put together the “Croce Plays Croce” production, talk about the conceptual nuances involved. Is that something you continue to fine-tune?
A.J.: Yeah, oh, absolutely, yes. “Croce Plays Croce” sort of came about in a really organic way. I didn’t play his music in my shows for the first 30 years of touring and recording in my career. When I decided to throw a song of his in the shows here and there, by that point, the audience was not expecting it.
So it became a lot of fun for me. And when I saw how emotional people got by hearing these songs, how much they enjoyed them, I felt like it was the right time to share more of them. I did one particular concert when my dad would have turned 70. That was almost 15 years ago.
I started off playing a set of my own, then invited a bunch of different musicians to come and sit in and we played dad’s greatest hits for an hour and a half. And I saw, in that moment, how powerful and emotional it was for the audience. They laughed and cried and really loved it; it was really special. So that was a factor, but I also realized if I was ever going to tour with this show, there needed to be more of me in it to establish the music that connects us.
Garde: That makes sense. On first listen, a lot of folks might think y’all’s respective music is quite a bit different. But the whole history of how you got into music and what each of you listened to is pretty revealing.
A.J.: Yeah, it might sound really different, but if you think about it through the lens of, say, Jimmy Reed, then you understand that my playing and my dad’s playing are very similar; we’re just doing it in our own way. That became kind of a way of bridging that divide and inviting people in to look at things in a new way.
To me, a really important part of the show is the storytelling about where the songs came from and how they evolved. Talk about some of my dad’s influences. He could play two hours and only sing six songs. (Laughs) He had a lot to say.
I don’t talk to that extent, but enough about the songs, the stories, and where things came from — just things that I think are interesting to the audience in a way that helps celebrate a legacy that so many people weren’t able to actually hear or see.
Garde: Speaking of influences, you and your father shared many. But you’ve gone on to play and record with many of those artists. Many of them are now your friends. I can only imagine how proud he would be.
A.J.: Yeah! You know, thinking about it in a fantastical way, in a different dimension or whatever, we would all have played together.
He loved those artists. He loved James Brown, Ray Charles, B.B. King. Of course, loved country music, loved Merle Haggard. In fact, Merle was really moved by the fact that my dad played one of his songs. And I think my dad would have been blown away to know people like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Glenn Campbell all recorded his stuff. Dolly Parton. Dad loved Jerry Reed, who did a whole Croce album. I think he would have been really humbled by the fact that artists of all different genres loved and recorded his music.
Garde: That you in fact have worked with so many of those folks says quite a bit about your own accomplishments. What was it like playing with those artists — not just from the perspective that they were fans of your dad’s and huge stars on their own, but also because YOU clearly belonged on the same stage or in the same studio with them?
A.J.: I don’t think I was so much in awe of these artists, with the exception of Ray Charles. That, for me, was kind of a dream in a way. I couldn’t imagine it being real, you
know? And James Brown was similar.
But for the most part, you know, they’re all people. I was not starstruck. I want to work with people that are inspired and creative and love music. To me, for all those reasons, the collaborations I’ve experienced are some of the greatest parts of doing what I do.
Garde: You had a lifetime of living with your father’s music before you started playing it onstage. In performance, after all this time, have you experienced any revelations about your dad and his songs? Stuff that maybe never would have occurred to you if you weren’t playing his music live every night and experiencing the connection with the audiences?
A.J.: Honestly, his music was always just so much a part of me. I think a lot of the things I listen to, and the WAY I listen to music, is such that I really absorb it. And it’s certainly that way with my father’s music because it has been constantly around since I was born. It was part of my life.
I was really fortunate to have close to 200 home tapes of him playing all different types of music and writing songs and hanging out with friends. Since he wasn’t there, those tapes were really important to me as a kid because they’re kind of how I got to know him.
Later on, it was part of my work because as publisher of his catalog, working behind the scenes to promote my father’s work, so was learning about his music from a different perspective — again, long before I ever played his music, you know? So, for me as a performer, I can appreciate the work. It’s fun every night to see how much the audience appreciates it. That’s always excellent. But, as far as understanding something more than I understood previously, I was already there.
Garde: Listening to your songs, particularly the piano-based stuff, I found a sort of an intriguing juxtaposition between the style with which you play your songs as opposed to the structures your dad utilized on guitar. But they’re still rooted in a similar vein, right?
A.J.: Right. They’re actually really similar, they’re just stylistically different. Dad played guitar and loved a lot of music and learned his instrument from a lot of styles. I mean, the structure of “Operator” is close to Bessie Smith’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” The structure of “Rapid Roy” is Chuck Barry. You know, the structure of “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” is Jimmy Reed. The structure of “Leroy Brown” is the boogie the ’50s, but before that, Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis.
All of that is in there. He just took all those same influences and filtered them differently.
As for me, I’ve become a more accomplished musician because, you know, I just had a lot more time to practice. Plus, I came at it from an early age on the piano. That allowed me to learn simple stuff on piano that’s very complicated for guitar. And sometimes it’s the opposite. Each instrument is unique in its way, so later, when I learned guitar, my approach was kind of different.
I was pretty logical in learning the piano. But with the guitar, there’s a lot more magical thinking involved. I wanted to keep it that way because I found it was the best way to simplify my songwriting. If I knew less chords, I would be able to focus on the story with the guitar.
Anyway, I think people are maybe distracted by the fact that the instruments are stylistically different, but chord wise, it’s very, very similar.
Garde: You referenced Ray Charles and a lot of artists that are from generations back and in some way pretty obscure, however unjust that might be. But, because you were exposed to that music and started playing it at a very early age, did you sort of skip a few generations of popular music that people your age were probably listening to?
A.J.: Yeah, yeah, I think so. Also, you know, I was curious. I think everyone that’s curious will change the radio dial. It always surprises me when people just stick to one station. I guess I’m unusual because I’m interested in all different types of music and want to hear what one station may program and what another might play. Of course, I’ll have my preferences, but it’s the diversity that makes life so much fun and makes music so much fun.
Garde: Your dad left a big collection of vinyl, right?
A.J.: Oh, yeah. I mean, it wasn’t a vast collection, you know, maybe 500 records, but it was all good and very diverse. Which was wonderful for me because there were things in there that my dad’s father had given to HIM. Fats Waller and Bessie Smith. There was stuff my dad discovered, you know, like the Delta blues artists like Mississippi John Heard or Skip James.
There was great country and there was great old folk music and there was great, great rock and roll and soul music, tons of it, you know, from Solomon Burke and Otis Redding to Sam Cook. And so I got a real sense of a broad array of music from the ’20s through the early ’70s. And that was my foundation. All of that was my foundation. So, I kind of had a jump start in a way because I was able to already hear that music, to know and learn it at such an early age.
Garde: Last question. I remember the first time I went to a concert and someone was actually selling T-shirts. It would have been 1972 and the band was Uriah Heep. You woulda been, um, about one. But your dad was touring then. Do you know if he was selling merch at that point in time? If so, do you have any of those old shirts?
A.J.: (Laughs) As a matter of fact, yes and yes! That’s funny because I think that’s just around when all that started. I mean, even the first Rolling Stones T-shirts, I think, were in ’72. Iron-on lettering, probably.
Anyway, our “Croce Plays Croce” T-shirt is a riff on my dad’s 1973 concert tour shirt. I think that was his first, and ours is very similar to the original one. It’s just slightly altered to include me. It kind of looks a little bit like a combination of like a mix between Peter Max and Roy Lichtenstein. A little bit of history. Sort of.