Croce Plays Croce 50th Anniversary Tour

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.

Jim Croce was an American folk singer with a short-lived professional recording and touring career, and decades of posthumous fame as one of the greatest songwriters and artists ever. With sales surpassing 50 million records, including three #1 songs and 10 Top 10 hits, Jim Croce’s short career and long-lived legacy are well-remembered through his era-defining standards like “Operator,” Time in a Bottle,” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”

On the “Croce Plays Croce 50th Anniversary Tour,” the gifted multi-instrumentalist will be backed by legendary band members Gary Mallaber (Van Morrison/Steve Miller Band), bassist/ singer David Barard (Dr. John), and guitarist/violinist James Pennebaker (Delbert McClinton); and will be accompanied by background singers Jackie Wilson and Katrice Donaldson. The show will include a moving, multi-media experience in which A.J. will perform his own songs, in addition to tracks from Jim’s mega-successful albums included in THE DEFINITIVE CROCE, which is being released this year for what would have been Jim’s 80th birthday before his untimely passing. Says A.J., “We’ll be playing songs representative from all three albums, and also some songs the audience might not know from more obscure artists that I realized connected me and my father. It was those songs that eventually led me to do this show in the first place.”

A.J. Croce’s 30-year touring and recording career has produced ten studio albums that have been released via both major and independent labels, and have charted 20 Top 20 singles and all ten albums on the radio including on Top 40, Americana, and Blues. A virtuoso piano player, he has performed at a TED Talk and gave a master class at the University of Barcelona. Croce has performed on major talk shows and news programs including The Late Show, The Tonight Show, The Today Show, CNN, MTV, and VH1. He’s toured with such esteemed artists as Willie Nelson, Lenny Kravitz, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and B.B. King. While his last album, Just Like Medicine, paired him with producer and soul legend Dan Penn and an all-star cast of players and guests like Vince Gill and Steve Cropper, his new album was born of memories — of favorite artists and shows, but mostly, of late-night gatherings with groups of friends, many of them fellow musicians, with Croce at the piano taking requests. Croce revisits these musical evenings on By Request (out on Compass Records) with 12 personally curated covers that traverse decades and genres, propelled by his spirited, piano mastery and emotive vocals. With a rich catalog of original compositions A.J. first recorded and released a composition of his fathers with a never-before-recorded song "Name of the Game" on his Just Like Medicine release. In 2018 he covered the 1973 hit “I Got A Name” for a Goodyear commercial with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
 
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