{"id":1867,"date":"2008-12-13T13:45:11","date_gmt":"2008-12-13T18:45:11","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-13T13:45:11","modified_gmt":"2008-12-13T13:45:11","slug":"critical-upgrade-jim-croce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/critical-upgrade-jim-croce\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical Upgrade: With More Personal Problems and Fewer Record Sales, Could Jim Croce Have Been America&#8217;s Answer to Nick Drake?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bU6h_EO2aqg?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAmong rock nerds <strong>Jim Croce<\/strong> seems to be a rare, successful singer-songwriter from the &#8217;70s who&#8217;s hard to hate? Some of his contemporaries, like <strong>Jackson Browne<\/strong>, have achieved greater critical acclaim from the post-Me Decade crowd, yet there are those unwilling to forgive the heap of Psychic Oblivion he laid on that generation. Although Croce&#8217;s hit songs include the wedding dance with Dad staple &#8220;Time in a Bottle,&#8221; you never hear people like us cut on Croce, do you? <\/p>\n<p>Among Croce&#8217;s soft-rock contemporaries, only <strong>James Taylor<\/strong> comes close in not having made enemies. In the case of both artists I think their avoidance of trends, their sense of decency and taste, and overall &#8220;class&#8221; contributed to their acceptance over time and regardless of mixed feelings any of us might have about their popular acceptance and airplay saturation. (The respect we have for Taylor&#8217;s soft rock also probably has something to do with the guy&#8217;s graceful acceptance of his baldness.) The other thing I think they had in common is that they were clearly fine musicians. It&#8217;s hard not to respect fine musicianship, especially when it&#8217;s presented in an unadorned fashion. Croce, especially, came off as a &#8220;musician&#8217;s musician.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RPM9uRZ3tN0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nApart from the psychic drama of the short life of <strong>Nick Drake<\/strong>,  we also got the clear impression of fine musicianship, taste, decency, and class. I&#8217;ve never been the type to plunge into trying to learn the finger-picking styles in the music of either Drake or Croce, but it&#8217;s my understanding that each man&#8217;s music included a distinct, difficult, personal style that is both challenging and satisfying for those who try to learn it.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know that it&#8217;s happened yet, but with more personal problems and fewer record sales could Jim Croce have been America&#8217;s answer to Nick Drake?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Among rock nerds Jim Croce seems to be a rare, successful singer-songwriter from the &#8217;70s who&#8217;s hard to hate? Some of his contemporaries, like Jackson Browne, have achieved greater critical acclaim from the post-Me Decade crowd, yet there are those unwilling to forgive the heap of Psychic Oblivion he laid on that generation. Although Croce&#8217;s <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/critical-upgrade-jim-croce\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[61],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}