ther, legendary singer-songwriter Jim Croce, died in a tragic airplane crash in 1973, so he didn’t know his dad’s music firsthand. Instead, “I came to love it in the same way everyone else did,” he has explained, “by lis- tening to the albums.” While he describes his father’s music as “part of me, part of my life,” A.J. doesn’t record the elder Croce’s music and mostly never performed the songs live. As a piano player, his interests tended to favor the blues and jazz-rooted music of mu- sicians like Ray Charles and Allen Toussaint. And even when A.J. began to present Jim Croce’s music in a special concert called “Croce Plays Croce” in large performing arts centers and concert series across the U.S., it wasn’t enough to inspire him to record his fa- ther’s work. Last year, that changed when an ad
agency reached out with a concept for him to record “I Got a Name,” his father’s 1973 posthumous hit, for a Goodyear commercial. Themed “Make a Name,” the ad follows Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s life, from watching his fa- ther, through his own race car driving career, to his recent retirement. As it happens, the song (written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel) was originally recorded by Jim Croce for The Last American Hero, a biopic about the life of legendary NASCAR driver Junior Johnson. The elder Croce titled what would be his last album after the song. Now, 45 years later, A.J.’s version will be released as a digital single, via Seedling Records on August 24, 2018, for a new generation to enjoy. (A.J. Croce’s ninth studio album was
released via Compass Records last summer. Produced by soul songsmith and producer Dan Penn (“Do Right Woman, Do Right Man”), it’s his most soulful effort to date. It was written mostly by Croce, with one song a co-write with the late great Leon Russell and one an original Jim Croce composition, never before recorded. The album features many music luminaries including Steve
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Cropper, Vince Gill, and Jeff Taylor (The Time Jumpers) and an all-star band with David Hood, Colin Linden, Bryan Ow- ings, The Muscle Shoals Horns, and the
McCrary Sisters. . .The music world suf- fered a great loss with the passing of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin who died at her Detroit home following a battle with pancreatic cancer on Thursday, August 16. She was 76. With a multi-decade career under her belt, Franklin was one of the most re- spected singers of a generation and was the first female inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her death was followed by countless tributes over the course of two weeks, making it obvious to all just how much she was loved and respected •
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