Music

A.J. Croce show to highlight dad's influences, his own

A.J. Croce brings his Two Generations of American Music concert to the Ozark Folk Center State Park.
A.J. Croce brings his Two Generations of American Music concert to the Ozark Folk Center State Park.

Singer-songwriter A.J. Croce was digging through his father's old reel-to-reel home recordings when he made a startling discovery.

"I'd never heard this tape before. It wasn't like hearing him play a song by someone that I had covered," the 45-year-old Croce says from his Nashville, Tenn., home. "He was covering the same songs I had covered."

A.J. Croce, Two Generations of American Music

7 p.m. Saturday, Ozark Folk Center State Park, 1032 Park Ave., Mountain View

Admission: $15-$25

(800) 264-3655

ozarkfolkcenter.com

His father, by the way, was beloved singer-songwriter Jim Croce, whose string of early '70s hits include "Time in a Bottle," "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)" and "You Don't Mess Around With Jim." A.J. wasn't quite 2 years old when Jim was killed in a Sept. 20, 1973, airplane crash.

The musical apple doesn't bounce far from the tree, though, and A.J. started learning piano when he was 4 and was playing in public by age 12. His jazzy, self-titled 1993 debut was produced by T-Bone Burnett and featured David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. To date, he has released eight full-length albums, with a new record on the way.

He has always made it a point of pursuing his own musical path, but hearing his father on that old reel-to-reel playing Fats Waller's "You're Not the Only Oyster in the Stew," was a revelation.

"It was the same song that I put on my first demo for Columbia Records when I was 18," A.J. says. "It's not a famous song. It's not 'Ain't Misbehavin,' it's not 'Honeysuckle Rose," it's a deep cut."

There were others -- including songs by Bessie Smith, Merle Haggard, Sam Cooke and Pink Anderson -- A.J. frequently played that, he now knew, his father had played around the house long before becoming famous.

"Listening to this tape, it gave me chills. I was hearing all these connections that I didn't realize existed," he says.

That bit of sonic kismet led to Croce: Two Generations of American Music, a concert that finds pianist A.J. celebrating not only his music and his father's but also their common influences.

He will perform the show Saturday at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, which promises to be a treat for a couple of reasons: "I don't do these two generations shows that often, and this one is particularly rare because I usually have a full band, but [organizers] requested a small group, so we're gonna do it as a trio for the first time."

Accompanying Croce on Saturday will be David Barard, longtime bassist for Dr. John, and guitarist Michael Bizar.

Croce, who is partially blind after suffering from a brain tumor as a child, is also preparing for the August release of his latest album, Just Like Medicine, which was produced by Southern soul legend Dan Penn and features guest spots from the likes of Vince Gill, the Muscle Shoals horn section, the McCrary Sisters, guitarist Steve Cropper and others.

"It has been in my head for a while to do a soul-inspired record," he says. "I'm not trying to copy or cover soul songs from the '60s or '70s, but I just wanted to write songs that evoke that emotion."

Croce wrote much of the record himself. Penn, who co-wrote classics like "Cry Like a Baby," "The Dark End of the Street," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" and others, helped write one track as did Croce's pal Leon Russell, who died before getting a chance to record on the project.

There's also a Croce family surprise on the new record in the form of A.J.'s version of "The Name of the Game I Play," an unreleased song of his father's.

"It was recorded for what would have been his next album after I Got A Name," he says. "I'd known about the song for a long time. I knew it had been bootlegged, but it had never been recorded with a full band. I thought it was a special thing. I've never really recorded any of his songs for my records, and probably won't [again]."

He lumped the track into the batch of 15 songs he pitched for inclusion on the album without telling anyone at first what it was: "I played them first for my wife and some friends. Then I played them for Dan. Everyone liked that song, but I didn't tell who wrote it or where it came from. I didn't want them to be biased, and I didn't want it to be some sort of sell-out thing."

Making the process even more special, the track was recorded with the same guitar Jim Croce used to write it.

"I thought it was a good song and it really fit the record," Croce says.

Weekend on 04/27/2017

Upcoming Events