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With his big old moustache, Roman nose and dark eyes twinkling from a lived-in, olive-skin face, Jim Croce looked like one of the good guys whose families went to America as immigrants, seeking neither fame nor fortune but just a fair crack of the whip. Driving a truck and favouring the blue-collar, sweat-and-smoke image, singer-songwriter Croce wa...

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On Thursday, Sept. 20, 1973, singer-songwriter Jim Croce died when his chartered plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He was 30 years old. Croce was a chart-topping musician who had performed over 300 concerts in the previous year. He had been in Natchitoches to play that evening at Northwestern State University, making u...

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James Joseph Croce was born on January 10, 1943, in the Little Italy section in the south end of Philadelphia, Pa. His father was Giacomo Alberto Croce (April 14, 1914 – March 8, 1972) who had emigrated from the community of Trasacco (population 6,241 in the 2016 census) in the province of L’Aquila in the region of Abruzzo.  His mother was Flora Ma...

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Sitting on my bedroom dresser is an old 45 from 1973, perched on a picture-frame pedestal. Its center hole is filled with a clock, its big and little hands stretching across the grooved vinyl. The label reads: “TIME IN A BOTTLE,” JIM CROCE. The talented Chester County resident would die that same year, making the words he sang on that tune so haunt...

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