Only the good die young...

In complete contrast to the last post (which was all about shite music), this one is about a musical diamond who still sparkles and inspires 34 years after his death.

Its a familiar story, the story of a determined singer/songwriter who lives a pennyless life along with his wife and newborn child, travels thousands of miles on the road playing no-horse town gigs for food money and literally selling his guitars to pay the rent until one day he is recognised and signed to a three album deal (that wouldn't happen now), and then tragically, just one day before his third and critically acclaimed album "I Got a Name" was to be released his light aircraft fails to clear a clump of trees at takeoff and he, his playing partner and sometime co-writer Maury Muehleisen (seen in the video above) and three others are killed - 20th September 1973.

Once again a light aircraft crash denied the world the ongoing talent of a musical genius and we are now left with Croces back catalogue to sate our appetite and long for more - I think I have everything that has been released by his record company and I can't think of a bad track amongst it all, I was introduced to the "I Got a Name" album in December '73 by a more enlightened friend and I've been a huge fan ever since.

His young baby son at the time of his death, AJ Croce, is now a performer and details of his gigs and a history of his father can be found at www.jimcroce.com - heres hoping he's half as good as his old man and that some recordings find there way over here soon.