by Ingrid Croce
Pat, Tommy’s ex-wife, had started the Manhattan Transfer with Tim Hauser, who was Jim and Tommy’s old buddy from Villanova. After Pat and Tommy split up, Pat and Gene had found an apartment together on Prince Street in Greenwich Village.
“Thanks. Appreciate it. So ya know Pat and I are together now.”
“Yeah,” Jim answered, “I heard.”
“How did you hear?”
“Tommy told me,” Jim said. “He also told me that you made an album together. That’s great.”
“I bet Tommy had some other nice things to say about us too,” Gene joked. “Come on, Jim, ‘fess up.”
“Well, you know Tommy. He did say that you were living like gypsies.” Jim laughed. “I guess he’s not that thrilled about the two of you being together or about your act.”
Gene didn’t understand why Jim and I had stayed with Tommy and the Boys, but he didn’t ask any questions. He wondered why, after we had hired an attorney and received his letter explaining the details of their contractual negotiations, we were still involved with those guys.
Before the show, Jim, Adrian James, and I went down to the Main Point. Tim Hauser interrupted the Manhattan Transfer sound check and came to greet us. He was eager to talk about old times at Villanova and catch up with Jim and me. He introduced us to Marty, his horn player, and Erin Dickens, his lead vocalist and girlfriend.
“Hi, guys!” Gene warmly embraced Jim and me.
“What’s that you’ve got there, man?” Jim teased. Gene held up his hand to show off his new rose tattoo. “Nice!” Jim said. “I’d like to get a couple of those myself someday.” I tried not to hurt Gene’s feelings, but Jim knew I hated tattoos. I gave him a look as if to say, “Don’t even think about it!” Pat came into the dressing room to give us both a hug and to kiss the baby.
“You guys look terrific!” I said.
“Thanks, Ing. There’s so much to catch up on. I can’t wait to come over and see your new home.”
Back at our house after the show, James Taylor showed up first. He sat down on the couch. He was shy and a bit withdrawn. I offered him something to eat or drink, and he took a glass of our homemade dandelion wine. Soon after, Gene showed up in his brand-new, shiny red VW convertible.
“Screw the Boys! I bought this with my own record advance. I wish you could see it better,” he said, opening the doors under the starlit sky.
Inside the house I filled the kitchen table with an antipasto and linguini with an arrabbiata sauce and fresh parmesan.
“There’s warm toasted garlic bread too,” I offered.
“What would a meal be without Ing’s homemade bread?” Jim called out, handing a joint to Gene. “I saw your new album in Billboard with a bullet,” Jim told them. “Good for you.”
“Thanks, Jim,” said Pat. “We’re excited. But enough about us—I want to hear your new record.”
“The record’s not pressed yet. I only have a cassette of the final mix,” Jim said, “but that works out alright ’cause our record player’s broken anyway.” Jim got up and started for the living room. “Even better, come on in here, and I’ll play you some of the new songs.” Jim picked up his guitar and began the intro for “New York’s Not My Home.” He followed the ballad with “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim.”
“That’s a great song, Jim. Sounds like something I should have written,” Gene joked.
James Taylor picked up his guitar and played “Sweet Baby James,” the song I sang to Adrian James every night when I put him to bed. It was reassuring having someone in our home who had already topped the charts.
Music was fun again, the way it used to be before we moved to New York. After Jim played them the tape of some of the tracks from the new album, we jammed together for a couple of hours. After 1 AM, Taylor packed up his guitar and asked if he could come by again the next day. Tim was tired, too, and headed off to bed with Erin. Marty took his sleeping bag and found a place to camp out. Back at the kitchen table, Jim and Gene continued to take turns playing songs for each other, while Pat and I chatted nonstop. Adrian James caught some z’s in his portable crib. By 5:30 AM, we were all ready to go to bed just as the baby woke up.
“Come on,” Gene said. “The sun’s coming up, and I can’t wait anymore. As long as the kid’s awake, let’s go for a ride in my new wheels.” He went outside to put the top down. Pat and our little family piled into the car, and a weary Pistilli took the driver’s seat. We headed to the all-night diner twenty miles away.
Halfway there, Gene took a wrong turn and barreled onto the interstate going the wrong way, doing sixty miles an hour against traffic.
“Oh my God, turn around, Gene,” I screamed. “The baby’s in the car!” Gene tried to turn but did a 360-degree spin onto the meridian. When he stopped, he pulled into the opposite lane, once again heading in the wrong direction.
All of us started yelling directions and advice. Fortunately, it was so early that traffic was light. Gene maneuvered a quick U-turn, finally joining the flow of traffic. I was scared out of my mind.
“Jim, maybe you better drive,” I begged, still shaking. “You know your way around here. Please, take the wheel away from this madman!”
Then, noticing a freeway sign, Jim yelled, “Hey Gino, you dumb fuck, you just passed the exit sign!”
Gene jammed on the brakes, and everyone reeled forward. He did another violent U-turn, throwing all of us sideways, and then drove along the shoulder to the exit. When we finally got to the diner, I sat clutching Adrian James. I couldn’t find anything funny about our near-death experience. Then again, I was the only one, except the baby, who wasn’t stoned.
_____
In mid-December, with only a few hundred dollars left from a second advance Tommy sent Jim, we paid the rent and used the rest to buy Christmas presents for friends and family. We gave $100 to Sal, who came over to tell us that he was sorry that he had quit his job as a professor at Glassboro and lost his tenure. Tommy and the Boys were now managing Maury on their own. They had convinced Sal that with their connections they could do far better for him than he could. Not wanting to stand in his protégé’s way, he encouraged Maury to take their help. Before Sal knew it, he was totally out of the picture.
“Take the money and go to New York,” Jim told Sal. “Or better yet, take a trip to your brother’s in Southbridge.”
_____
A week before Christmas, while Adrian James was taking his midday nap, Jim surprised me.
“I’ve got an S for you,” he told me, hiding the package behind his back.
“A surprise, really?” I said. Inside the box was a new suede winter coat. I had admired it one weekend while we were window-shopping in Philadelphia.
“Oh, Jim, I love this so much I can’t stand it!” I tried it on and stood on a chair to look into the antique mirror that hung above the couch. I snapped the buttons closed. “Look, it fits me perfectly. But we can’t afford this.”
“Don’t worry, sweet thing,” he said. “I wish I could get you nice things all the time. Last year I could only afford to buy you a pomegranate,” he remembered.
“Yes, but it was a beautiful one. I couldn’t buy anything for you this year Jim,” I apologized as I handed him his Christmas present wrapped in my homemade wrapping paper. “But I hope you like what I made for you.” Jim opened it and found a hand-knitted, light blue wool sweater and a colorfully embroidered work shirt. “These are beautiful, Ing. When did you find the time to make them? I love them,” he said, giving me a big hug.
Two days before Christmas, Jim returned home from Frank’s Folly with milk and cigarettes, which was all he could afford. Though he’d been writing great songs in Lyndell, he was still playing the Paddock for only $25 a night plus tips. And he was embarrassed to go to his parents’ house for Christmas Day, for fear they’d remind him that he was a bum.
“You know, Ing, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, waiting around for Tommy until something happens. Look at us.” He threw up
his hands. “You have hardly anything to wear. I have holes in my boots. And there’s not even 50 bucks left in the goddamn checking account!”
“Let’s just enjoy the holidays. Mom and Dad will be focused on Adrian James. It’s going to work out.”
On his first Christmas, three-month-old Adrian was dressed in Santa pajamas with a matching stocking cap that Jim’s parents had given us. Adrian James heightened everyone’s holiday spirits. Because of Christmas and the baby, Jim and his dad got along better than usual. Jim cautiously decided to play the title cut from his album, which he’d just received from Tommy. He put the record on the stereo as his father listened intently. He tried to read his dad’s face but couldn’t, and he fidgeted in the armchair waiting for a response.
“Jim, this is really good,” his father said before the song was over. “I think you’ve got something here.”
Jim nodded, taking in the praise. Later, when we left for Lyndell, our arms full of Christmas presents and dinner leftovers, Jim’s father put his arm around his son and said, “I just hope it works this time, Jimmy. I think You Don’t Mess Around with Jim could be a hit. I really do.”
“Me too, Dad. Thanks.”
_____
Finally, in February 1972, Tommy called Jim with news.
“Kurnit went to Switzerland last week for a music conference,” he explained. “He met Sherwin Bash of BNB Management, just after Bash gave his speech saying that his company would listen to any new artist. Bash is a heavyweight manager in the music industry. And Phil jammed your tape of You Don’t Mess Around with Jim into his hand and made him promise to listen to it.”
“Did he like it?” Jim asked into the receiver.
“Well, he played it while he was driving through the mountains of Switzerland and got so excited he stopped at the first payphone he could find and called Phil. He told him, ‘Croce’s a star.’ And he’d be interested in talking with us about signing you when he got back to LA. With a guy like Sherwin Bash and BNB, you could get some major distribution. I think this is it, Jimmy.”
Jim hung up the phone.
Ing!” he shouted. “I’ve got some great news!”
_____
When Sherwin returned to Los Angeles, he and Kurnit put contracts together. Sherwin flew to New York to meet Jim, and Adrian and I came with him. As soon as we arrived at the office, Phil asked Jim to put his signature on the bottom of some blank publishing forms, saying, “It’s merely a formality.” At the same time, Phil tried to smooth over the fact that my name was being removed from our cowritten song, “Hey Tomorrow.” He explained that the record company only wanted songs that Jim had written exclusively and asked me to sign off on it and remove my name as coauthor, just for this album.
When Sherwin Bash showed up, he seemed like a movie star himself. He was well-dressed, composed, tan, and handsome, with a close-cropped beard. We all shook hands, and Jim told Sherwin, “I know you handle some big stars like Randy Newman. I sure hope I can do as well for you.”
“No doubt about it,” Sherwin replied confidently, his light blue eyes sparkling. Kurnit held out a pen and told Jim where to sign the new management contract, and Jim did what he was told, as usual without reading it. BNB Management had already secured a booking agent, a public relations firm, a travel agent, and an accounting firm for Jim, and gave him an itinerary of the gigs he would be playing for a six-week tour, starting almost immediately.
In March, BNB assisted Cashman & West in signing Jim to an ABC/Dunhill contract for three albums in two years. ABC would distribute domestically; Kurnit was securing contracts throughout the world for further distribution. Everything was in place and poised for Jim’s career to take off.
On another trip to New York, Jim had to do some overdubs for the album. At the office, we found there were more contracts ready for Jim’s signature. Once again, I cautioned him, but he refused my advice and signed.
I waited in Tommy’s office with the baby while Jim went to the studio with the Boys. Around noon, I offered to answer the phones while I nursed Adrian, so Tommy’s secretary, Joni, could take her lunch break. When the phone rang, I picked it up and heard Tommy’s father introduce himself. “Hi, Mr. Picardo, this is Ingrid Croce. I’m just helping out in the office for a few minutes.”
“Jim Croce is dead. Have you heard the news?” he said nervously.
“What? What are you talking about?” I asked. Mr. Picardo talked with a gruff New Jersey accent, and he repeated what he had said, but just a bit louder.
“Jim Croce is dead.” I then realized he was talking about Jim’s father. He told me Jim Senior had suffered a heart attack in the shower at home alone.
I was heartbroken. I loved Jim’s dad, and I was shocked. I knew Jim’s mother was with her sister-in-law in Hawaii, vacationing, and this was the first time that his parents had ever been apart. I felt awful for her. I wanted to tell Jim immediately and tried calling him at the studio but couldn’t reach him. I waited for him to return to the office and thought about how sad he would be and how his father would miss the release of Jim’s album. When the boys arrived back at the office, an hour or so after the dreadful call, I hugged Jim and took him to the back office to tell him the terrible news.
He broke down and cried. He wanted to leave immediately for Drexel Hill so he could be there for Flora when she returned from Hawaii. We also needed to help notify the rest of the family. Jim’s brother, Rich, and his wife, Diane, flew up from Florida, and Flora’s family drove down from Rochester, New York. All the Croces and Babuscis and their families and friends gathered for the Catholic funeral, a solemn requiem Mass.
Jim took his father’s death hard. He moped around the house, not once picking up his guitar. The afternoon after the funeral his mother called.
“Oh, Mom,” Jim said, “I feel so bad.”
“His death,” she screamed over the telephone, “it’s all your fault! He had a heart attack because of you. It’s your fault he died. You and your music killed him!”
“But, Mom . . .” Jim tried to defend himself, but he was so broken up by what she was saying, he couldn’t go on. She hung up on him. He cursed and then dropped to the couch, with his head in his hands.
Then he told me what his mother said.
“She’s just not thinking rationally, Jim. She’s grieving and striking out.”
He ran his fingers through his hair.
“I didn’t kill my father, Ing. We may not have seen eye-to-eye on my music, but I never wanted to hurt him.”
“Please, don’t take her words to heart, Jim. I know they’re not true and she doesn’t mean them.”
_____
In spring 1972, ABC/Dunhill released You Don’t Mess Around with Jim, nine months after it had been recorded. Matty Singer, an ABC/Dunhill sales representative, fell in love with Jim’s music. Determined to get the album on the air, he personally visited every radio station in Philadelphia and the rest of his region.
“You’ve got to play Jim Croce,” he would tell them. “The guy’s the best, and he’s just as nice as he is talented. Play Croce! You have to play Croce!” And they did. Within four weeks, “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” became a hit single, and the album began receiving positive reviews in newspapers and magazines across the country.
“Jesus!” said Maury, as they packed for their tour. “Years of work, and in one short month you’re an overnight success!”
Jim read the reviews that began pouring in, stunned and not quite able to believe what was happening. In June, they debuted in New York City to promote the new LP with shows at the Bitter End and the Persian Room. The leading national music magazine, Cashbox, reviewed Jim’s show. The following week, he excitedly read the article to me over the phone:
Jim Croce didn’t mess around. Combining a Bill Cosbyesque patter with a firm hand on his acoustic guitar and sweet/mean voice, he is certainly sure of where he wants to go and gets there. The album’s title tune (and also his new single) is an example of a s
ong in which characters are introduced, described and fully developed and all in under three minutes. Jim really gives you what you can’t get in too many other places. Croce is ably assisted by guitarist Maury Muehleisen, whose licks flow like spring water, making Jim’s tunes all the more refreshing and welcome.
“And, Ing,” he continued in a rush, “the June 10 Billboard chose the album as a ‘special merit pick.’ God, Ing! It’s just what we’ve been waiting for. I guess it just takes one!”
After his debut in New York, he opened at the Main Point for Randy Newman. On Friday, June 16, the Evening Bulletin announced:
If Croce’s guitar strings ever break, he can ride on his mouth. While Croce’s songs are witty, telling and, above all, intelligent, his between song patter is as funny, make that funnier than most stand-up comics.
Back home, I clipped out the review.
“I hope you remember your dad,” he said quietly, looking over at Adrian James in his playpen. “I have a feeling he’ll be on the road a long time.”
_____
Jim started on a whirlwind coast-to-coast tour as the opening act for Randy Newman, whose dry humor, songwriting, and musicianship impressed Jim.
At the end of June they played the Bitter End a second time, and Jim and Maury were an even bigger hit. A few days afterward, Maury came to Jim’s room with a new copy of Cashbox magazine.
“Hey, did you read this, Jim?” Maury read out loud:
Although ABC/Dunhill’s Jim Croce and wonder back-up guitarist Maury Muehleisen had gotten a hold of some bad yogurt at a “health” food store a few hours before their performance, they looked and sounded anything but pained on stage. Croce is continually polishing and tightening up his raps without leaving them over-rigid, and the combination of his musical styles continues to improve from good to great. Although his debut LP and single are both proving the points we made a few weeks back about his mass appeal, we won’t say we told you so (even though we did!).