AJ CROCE concert in Coppell, TX on Saturday, February 26 at COPPELL ARTS CENTER. TICKETS
A.J. Croce performs Croce Plays Croce, a special night of music featuring a complete set of classics by his late father Jim Croce, some of his own tunes, and songs that influenced both him and his father. This special event features such timeless songs as “Operator,” “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” “Time in a Bottle,” (a song written for A.J.), “Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy), and “Lovers Cross”, to name a few. Classic covers may include songs by Lieber and Stoller, Bessie Smith, and other folk and roots artists.
A.J.’s most recent release is an eclectic new covers album called By Request through Compass Records. Propelled by his spirited, loose-and-easy piano mastery and emotive vocals, Croce revisits these musical memories covering songs by artists including Allen Toussaint, Billy Preston, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Faces, Randy Newman and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
Nashville-based singer/songwriter A.J. Croce has always traveled on his own musical road. For more than twenty years, the creative pop iconoclast has tapped a variety of Americana sounds in crafting his music. Many of Croce’s albums have appeared on Top 40, AAA, Americana, College, and Blues charts and when his breakout sophomore CD That’s Me in the Bar was reissued, it wound up charting in two separate decades.
Always interested in exploring new creative territories, A.J. has created a unique concert experience celebrating both his own music and that of his father, the late troubadour Jim Croce. Entitled “Croce Plays Croce,” the evening finds A.J. Croce performing his songs, his father’s tunes and music that influenced both of them.
A.J. was only two years old when Jim Croce died in a tragic airplane crash in 1973, so he didn’t know his father’s music firsthand. Instead, “I came to love it in the same way everyone else did,” he explained, “by listening to the albums.” While he describes his father’s music as “part of me, part of my life,” A.J. never really performed those songs live. As a piano player, his interests tended to favor the blues and jazz-rooted music of musicians like Ray Charles and Allen Toussaint.
A few years ago, however, A.J. was digitalizing some of his father’s old tapes and came across a cassette filled with covers of old blues and folk tunes by the likes of Fats Waller, Bessie Smith and Pink Anderson. It was a revelation to him. “He was playing stuff I played myself,” A.J. revealed, adding that “stuff made sense” discovering that his father and he had “all the music common.”
As he started to learn his father’s tunes, A.J. had to do it “the old fashion way, by listening to the recordings” because there were no chord books of Jim Croce music. A.J., who was developing his own guitar playing prowess, was particularly impressed with the complexities of his father’s compositions, especially in interplay between Croce and his longtime collaborator, lead guitarist Maury Muehleisen, who died with Croce in that fatal plane crash.
Jim Croce found long-overdue success in 1972 following years of struggling to make a name in the music business. That year he released two albums, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim and Life and Times, that spawned the hit singles “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,” “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels),” “Time in a Bottle” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” (the latter two tunes both reached Number #1). His final studio effort, I’ve Got a Name, was released in December of 1973, less than three months after his death. Three more hits (“Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues,” “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song” and the title song) came from that album, which reached #2 in the album charts. A.J. pointed out that these three classic albums amazingly were recorded in just a one-and-a-half-year time period. Jim Croce, who was just thirty when he died, has had his folk-rock music remain popular over the years. His record sales have surpassed the 45 million mark, and his songs have appeared on over 375 compilations.
A.J.’s most recent release is an eclectic new covers album called By Request through Compass Records. Propelled by his spirited, loose-and-easy piano mastery and emotive vocals, Croce revisits these musical memories covering songs by artists including Allen Toussaint, Billy Preston, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Faces, Randy Newman and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
U.S. Tour Dates 2022
Fri, Jan 28 | Webb Center | Wickenburg, AZ (An Evening with A.J. Croce)
Sat, Jan 29 | Fox Theatre | Tucson, AZ (Croce plays Croce)
Thu, Feb 10 | Flying Monkey | Plymouth, NH (Croce plays Croce)
Sat, Feb 12| Barre Opera House | Barre, VT (Croce plays Croce)
Sat, Feb 26 | Coppell Arts Center | Coppell, TX (Croce plays Croce)
Sun, Feb 27 | The Temple Theater | Lufkin, TX (Croce plays Croce)
Thu, March 3 | Newton Theater | Newton, NJ (Croce plays Croce) 7:30pm SOLD OUT /2nd show Added
Fri, March 4 | Grunin Center | Tom’s River, NJ (Croce plays Croce)
Fri, March 18 | The Sheldon | St. Louis, MO (Croce plays Croce)
Sat, March 19 | Tarkington Theater | Carmel, IN (Croce plays Croce)
Sun, March 20 | Woodstock Opera House| Woodstock, IL (Croce plays Croce)
Fri, April 1 | Fairfield Community Arts Center | Fairfield, OH (Croce plays Croce)
Sat, April 2 | The Holland Theatre | Bellefontaine, OH (Croce plays Croce)
Fri, April 29 | The Historic Holmes Theatre | Detroit Lakes, MN (Croce plays Croce)
Sat, April 30 | The Paramount Center for the Arts | Saint Cloud, MN (Croce plays Croce)
Wed, May 11 | Community Concert Hall | Durango, CO (Croce plays Croce)
Fri, May 13 | Colonial Theatre | Idaho Falls, ID (Croce plays Croce) SOLD OUT
Fri, May 20 | Admiral Theatre | Bremerton, WA (Croce plays Croce)
