Croce ranked No. 1 on Billboard’s list of Top Pop Albums Artists of 1974, ahead of Elton John, Charlie Rich and John Denver.
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Croce ranked No. 1 on
Billboard's list of Top Pop Albums Artists of 1974, ahead of Elton John, Charlie Rich and John Denver.
Fifty years ago today (Sept. 20),
Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash in Natchitoches, Louisiana, during a concert tour of southern colleges. In the previous 15 months, Croce had amassed four top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,” “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels),” “One Less Set of Footsteps” and the sing-along smash “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” which spent the final two weeks of July 1973 at No. 1.
The sudden
death of someone who was so new to the mainstream was of course a shock. But few would have expected what would happen next: Croce’s death triggered one of the biggest posthumous sales booms in history. “I Got a Name,” which was released the day after Croce’s death, reached the top 10 on the Hot 100 in November. The following month, the poignant “Time in a Bottle” (which had appeared on his 1972 album
You Don’t Miss Around With Jim) became his second No. 1. It made Croce just the third artist in the history of the Hot 100 to top the chart
posthumously, following
Otis Redding (“(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” 1968) and
Janis Joplin (“Me and Bobby McGee,” 1971). Moreover, Croce became the first artist in Hot 100 history to top the chart both while living and after his death.
