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I Got a Name: The Jim Croce Story

Page 16

by Ingrid Croce


  “We need to get you into the studio, but in the meantime, get Gene to bring you down to my place at Gramercy Park. We’ll hang out in the Village some night.”

  Tommy escorted Nik to the lobby and returned smiling. “He likes your music, Jimmy. Nik’s going to help us coproduce a couple albums for Capitol. We got a three-album deal to produce two more acts after our current album is done. I think you could be next.”

  He handed Jim a promo picture that read, “Cashman, Pistilli and West.”

  “Who’s this guy, West?” Jim laughed and pointed to Tommy’s picture. “He sounds pretty white-bread to me.” Tommy shrugged his shoulders but kept silent. “Your old man must be pissed as hell about you changing the family name,” Jim said, looking up from the photograph.

  “Yeah,” Tommy said nonchalantly. “But Terry’s real name is Dennis Minogue. He took two new names. We just didn’t think Picardo, Pistilli, and Minogue worked. Shit, you know—you do what you’ve gotta do.”

  Jim was surprised that Tommy had given up his family name. Jim’s own father had changed his name from Hermino Gildo Croce to James Croce, and Jim understood wanting to be more American. But he would never change his family name: it was his legacy.

  Tommy and Jim’s Italian-American families, college, and love of music had created a strong friendship between them. But now, things were changing. Jim was a Jew, and Picardo was West. Tommy was the music business, and Jim was the product. Tommy had the money, and Jim barely had enough to make the drive to New York and back.

  Yet in spite of their differences, Jim still believed his friend when he said he could help him. He was counting on it.

  When we brought our one suitcase up to Tommy’s apartment to get ready to go out to dinner, Pat still wasn’t dressed. It was 5 PM. She was cleaning the cabinets and didn’t look at all like the Pat I remembered. She was warm but subdued and seemed really sad. After hugs, she disappeared into the bedroom.

  Pat and Tommy had been childhood sweethearts in Neptune, New Jersey, and had married after he graduated from Villanova and Pat from Cabrini. Pat, a tall, attractive woman with an engaging personality, was a singer-songwriter who had performed with Jim and Tommy at college parties and events. What was she doing in her pajamas?

  That evening Tommy took us to dinner in Little Italy, down in the Village, but Pat stayed home. He treated us to a visit at the Bitter End and afterward to an espresso at a nearby coffeehouse. It was a real treat for us, but I felt uncomfortable having Tommy pay for things we couldn’t afford.

  Pat was asleep when we returned to the East Side at Fifty-First Street and Second Avenue. The spacious, luxury apartment Tommy rented had contemporary Scandinavian furniture, oversized leather couches, and highly polished wooden floors, but only one bedroom. The three of us quietly entered the darkened living room, where Tommy pulled out a studio bed, and Jim and I spent our first night together in New York City.

  After breakfast at the Stage Deli, Tommy’s treat again, Jim and I drove back to Media.

  “I’d love to get a record deal with Nik Venet,” Jim said, “What did you think of him, Ing? Do you think he really liked us?”

  “I think he did,” I said. “I think the audition went really well. I want you to know, Jim, that if they just want to produce you and not me, I’m really okay with it. I have my art, and as long as we have each other, that’s what really matters to me.”

  “Oh Ing, I can’t do this without you. You’re the reason for everything. I love you so much.” He paused. “I’m so sorry that I can’t talk to you the way you want me to. But I just can’t.”

  I tried to understand the mixed messages I was getting but moved on to another uncomfortable subject.

  “Jim, I have to admit, I’m uneasy around Tommy. What’s going on with them? Are they still together? ’Cause it sure seems strange the way Pat is in pajamas all day long.” He just shrugged. “Well, whatever their problem is, I can tell you that Tommy doesn’t like me. He’d rather have you to himself. I just get in the way.”

  “That isn’t true, Ing. You sing great, and I don’t want to do an album without you.”

  “But you’re the star, sweetie. I’m always happy to sing with you. But like I said, I have my art. And music is everything to you. It’s what you have to do.”

  _____

  Once I was back at school, I was happy and busy with pottery and painting. When my father was dying of cancer, and Jim had been trying to get settled into civilian life, I’d dropped the one class I really wanted to take with the head of the painting department, Harold Jacobs. But this year I would be able to devote the time and energy that the class would demand, and I was determined to do well.

  While music made me happier than almost anything, especially when I sang with Jim, I felt I had a gift for design.

  Harold Jacobs was intense and not easily pleased. But he was attracted to my work and surprised by my confidence. He was especially taken with my mixed media.

  Jim was proud of my art and complimented me often, always encouraging me with my studies. I excelled in this realm, and Jim was happy to be the supportive husband.

  Once school was in full swing, things between Jim and me seemed to be getting back to normal. He still drove me to the Media train station every morning, and when I got home, a delicious dinner awaited me. Jim would prepare antipastos with roasted peppers and garlic, fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, prosciutto and crisp bruschetta. Our budget was limited, but pasta was cheap, and he varied his own homemade sauces. Though the meals were a wonderful gift, Jim had a knack for using every pot, pan, and plate in the kitchen, and it was left up to me to clean it all before we’d head out to our gig at the Paddock.

  We played music together whenever we could, and things appeared to be getting better. But there were still times when the dissonance in the relationship would flare up out of the blue in full force. The trust that was once between us wasn’t perfect anymore; it seemed conditional.

  When Jim didn’t hear back from Tommy the week after our trip to New York, he became discouraged. He wasn’t happy at his teaching job and was increasingly insecure about whether he would ever be able to make music his career.

  “I sure hope the guys in New York call you soon, Jim,” I said one day.

  “Well, they haven’t yet. But maybe Gene Pistilli will call you. You sure seemed to enjoy your time at the office with him.”

  “What?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. ‘Nice ass!’ I saw you leading him on. Shit, can’t you go anywhere without flirting?”

  “Flirting! What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to provoke him. Are you ever going to stop throwing the rape in my face? I can’t stand this anymore!”

  Twenty minutes passed before I broke the silence.

  “Jim, I’m going to get counseling.”

  “Why?” he asked indifferently, and then added, “Well, maybe you could use it. Maybe they’ll teach you how to avoid putting yourself in situations that lead to trouble.”

  “Maybe you’re right. But I need your help. We both need to get counseling.”

  When he didn’t respond, I pulled my sketchbook out of my bag, started looking through my work, and changed the subject.

  “I really want to start planning for graduate school, maybe at Yale.”

  “You could probably get a scholarship. Shit! I can’t believe I’m back at Palansky Junior High—going nowhere!”

  “I’m so sorry you hate your job. I know something will come of our trip to New York, and you’ll get that album deal. You’ll see.”

  I was sad that he was postponing his career to put me through school, as he had promised my father he would. Though we were performing locally, Jim hadn’t been pursuing his music career as aggressively as he could have. And there were no guarantees in the music business. It was always a crapshoot.

  Nonetheless, we had become the Riddle Paddock’s most popular performers. Jim learned to skillfully manage the unruly audiences even t
hough they often tested the limits of his patience.

  “I never wear a guitar strap in there,” he once told Sal. “Too many times I have to put down the fucking instrument and move as fast as I can to get out of the way of a bar stool or a flying beer bottle.

  “One time somebody kicked somebody else, and a bar stool flew over and busted two of my guitars. Two guitars in one fight! You never know when somebody is going to come up and turn their animal loose on you and go into their dance. I don’t mind people expressing themselves and doing different things. But I don’t want them doin’ it all over me.”

  When he sensed the crowd getting unruly, Jim would try to quiet them by telling stories, often making up the raps as he went along:

  “You know for my day gig I teach special education in Chester. The kids I have at school are what you would call serious discipline problems. You know those guys who go on safaris and shoot elephants with tranquilizer darts?” He paused. “Well, those guys have missed their calling. They don’t know it, but they’ve got a future in the education system.”

  He waited for the audience to respond. “Of course, there are the other types of kids, too, the ones I call my beets and carrots. All I have to do with them is sit them by the window and rotate them every now and then, so they get enough sunlight.” Then he’d play one of the songs by the Temptations, to teach his “beets and carrots” how to read.

  The more popular Jim grew, the more the audience took part in his act. “It’s time for a bawdy ballad, Jim!” someone would yell. “Sing ‘The Chastity Belt.’” He’d sing a stanza, and the regulars would sing along. Or they’d ask, “Play us that new song,” or “Get Ingrid up there!” Our repertoire had become so vast that the audiences rarely heard a song repeated throughout an entire week, unless it was requested.

  Jim still played occasionally with Bill Reid, but they rarely saw one another outside the Paddock. Bill and Dee were now raising Arabian horses, Great Danes, and children on a farm in Sadesburyville, about an hour from Media.

  Chris and Dave Sigafoos and a couple of other Riddle Paddock supporters, as well as my classmates and teachers, would invite Jim and me to their homes for social dinners. Jim graciously brought along his guitar and played for hours, often until the hosts were ready for bed.

  Chris Sigafoos was one of our closest friends at the time. Her husband, Dave, was still in medical school and quite busy. Often she would come alone to the Paddock and sit with me while Jim performed.

  Another good friend, Bob Knott, the banjo and guitar player from Jim’s Middle East tour, and his wife, Ellen, moved to Philadelphia that year for graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. Bob was getting his doctorate in early-twentieth-century art, and Ellen was a librarian.

  Jim and I enjoyed the mental stimulation of Bob and Ellen’s company and liked playing music in their highly academic home environment. In spite of everyone’s busy schedules, we all found time to get together a couple of nights a month.

  With the social unrest of 1968 amplified by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and race riots across the country, the counterculture was strongly influencing music.

  Though Jim and Bob continued to play traditional bluegrass and folk tunes, Jim and I had started to write songs that reflected the growing dissatisfaction with the establishment, and we tested them out with Bob and Ellen. Our acoustic guitar and two voices distinguished us from the electric music that groups like Crosby, Stills and Nash; the Byrds; and the Beatles were playing. But our tunes carried similar messages.

  Folk music had lost some of its luster and popularity when Dylan and the Band transformed the scene a few years earlier with electric folk-rock. Still, Jim and I kept the majority of our music tied to the traditional roots of American folk music. Jim enjoyed the immediacy of grabbing his guitar and playing whenever and wherever he was. He was a troubadour and a purist who didn’t feel comfortable hassling with electric instruments onstage or with their artificially produced sound.

  Other than the Paddock crowd, Bob and Ellen, and Chris and Dave, most of our social life was built around my school friends and professors. At their parties, we provided the entertainment, and no matter how tense things got between us, when we sang together, the problems went away or at least got put on hold.

  _____

  A few weeks into my semester, Jim received a letter from the Chester Board of Education.

  “I don’t believe it, Ing,” he exclaimed. “They’ve fired me!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The school board fired me. They said they warned me last year about playing music in the classroom, and they got word I was doing it again.”

  “Don’t they know you do it to teach the kids to read?” Their bureaucratic reasoning pissed me off. “Are they so backward they can’t see that your students are reading for the first time in their lives?” He tossed the letter aside.

  “They’re Nazi bureaucrats. I disobeyed orders, and that’s all they know. What the hell—I’m not sure the Raisin would survive another year there anyway,” he said, referring to the abuse the VW was taking at the hands of the students.

  At this point, he had no choice but to return to the radio station full-time, selling airtime and writing commercials. But since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., racial tensions were running high in the predominately black ghettos of West Philly, and he was nervous about the rough neighborhoods in his territory.

  Luckily, a client introduced him to FuFu Allenger, a flamboyant, black pool hall owner. FuFu wore an Afro so high he looked like a seven-foot giant, with silk suits and diamond rings on every finger. A “smoove” talker and a shrewd businessman, he took great pride in his advertising savvy. He had a giant picture of himself plastered across a billboard in the middle of his neighborhood. “Come on down and see FuFu,” the text read.

  On his first visit, Jim managed to sell FuFu air time and soon became a regular player at Allenger’s Pool Hall. Jim talked jive with the black hustlers, knowing his safety in the ghetto depended on whether FuFu enjoyed his company. Two weeks after Jim had landed the Allenger account, he drove by the pool hall and noticed FuFu’s face on the billboard had been blown away by a shotgun blast. He walked into the billiard hall and found a somber mood.

  “FuFu’s dead,” said a big man, glaring from behind the bar, his arms folded across his chest. “They beat him with his own stick and laid him out on that table there and watched him bleed to death.” The bartender nodded in the direction of the blood-stained table.

  The afternoon Jim quit the radio station; he wasn’t there to pick me up at the train station. Even though the station was only a few blocks from our street, he had insisted on picking me up every evening. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to protect me or make sure I didn’t lure anyone on the walk home.

  When I got off the train, I waited a half hour and then called home. The phone was busy. So I decided to walk. When I arrived at the house, Jim was just hanging up the phone, an expression of exhilaration on his face.

  “Hi, sweet thing,” I said. He looked startled by my voice.

  “It was Tommy, Ing. They want us to come up and make the album!”

  “Oh Jim, I’m so happy for you. This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to the train station on time. But Tommy called, and we were talking. How did you get home, Ing?”

  “I walked. It’s not far, and besides I didn’t have much to carry.”

  “Well, sit down, sweet thing. I’ve made you a nice dinner of veal parmigiano, kohlrabi, and garlic bread, and I want to talk to you.”

  During the meal Jim seemed genuinely happy. He went out of his way to make me laugh, but when he stood up and started to clear the dishes, I felt something was wrong.

  “Jim, what’s the matter? Is there something bothering you?”

  He looked at me for a long moment and sat down. “I quit the radio s
tation today. FuFu’s dead. He was murdered at the pool hall.”

  “Oh my God, Jim. Were you there?”

  “No, it happened a couple of days ago. But I just found out.”

  “Jim, you know I was always scared about you working down there. I’m so glad you weren’t hurt. What would I do without you?” I got up and went over to embrace my husband.

  “Well, the good news is that Tommy said Nik Venet is interested in recording us on Capitol Records.”

  “That’s great news, sweetie.”

  “But . . . Tommy wants us to move to New York City.” His sad brown eyes were filled with anxiety. “So you’d have to leave school.”

  I quickly reviewed the move and its opportunities. The decision had to be made immediately, and I knew it was Jim’s turn.

  “When do we leave?” He crushed me with a hug.

  “Ing, you’ll be able to finish school sometime, I promise! It’s just I don’t know how many chances like this people get. I think we’d better grab it.” I nodded as he ran into the kitchen to call Tommy.

  “I agree,” I called out. I prayed that this would help our marriage, which meant more to me than anything.

  The next morning, I arranged for a one-year leave of absence from Moore and put our things in storage, and forty-eight hours later, we were packed and back on the New Jersey Turnpike, heading for New York City. Loaded with our belongings, the Raisin pushed against a brisk headwind at a top speed of forty-five miles per hour.

  Tommy had invited us to stay at his apartment until we found a place of our own. This time, Pat greeted us at the door and seemed more like herself.

  “I hope you don’t mind sleeping on the hideaway bed again,” she said.

  “It’s fine,” Jim replied, squeezing my hand.

  That night, we made love tenderly. For the first time in months I felt as if he might finally be getting over his resentment. The next morning, Tommy arranged for Jim to sing backup on some radio and television commercials. It wouldn’t be steady or amount to much money, but it was a chance to get acclimated to working in the studio.

 

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