If Jim Croce's music were released today, would he be considered a country artist?

[OmahaBlueDog]

Music radio was very different in the 70s. Most popular music was still played on AM, and many of the stations were "Top 40" -- meaning you could hear the Elton John, David Bowie, Diana Ross, and the Jackson 5 on the same station. When I was a kid, Jim Croce was played on rock/pop stations.

Flash forward 40 years -- I think now he'd be considered a "Today's Country" artist.

[Tobin S.]

1. They say rock-n-roll is a mixture of country and blues

When I think about it, it seems to me that in the 70s there were a lot more "rock" bands that either sounded dominantly bluesy or dominantly country. Now days if you listen to the new rock bands...well I won't say the sound has evolved, but the sound is more distinctly different than blues or country. The blend has become more enmeshed over time creating something really...different.

[alphafemale]

3. That "belch" singing of late.

I think it's hilarious. I think they think they sound fierce.

[OriginalGeek]

11. this is one of my favorite bands

I was about 3 feet from the guy taking this video:

In most death metal the vocals are not intended to be a conveyance for the lyrics. It's really just another percussive instrument to help intensify the mood. I love it (but I understand perfectly how not everyone would lol.)


as for OP, I'm not sure Jim would be considered country - probably mostly be on easy listening stations (do they even have those any more?). I don't think he'd fit in with the pop stations playing Gaga and whatever else is pop today...

[alphafemale]

14. Yeah. Like that!

I can't stop giggling. And I'm certain that is NOT his intent.

[OriginalGeek]

17. lol, it's cool

Intended or not, he made you happy and giggling and there's rarely anything wrong with that

[alphafemale]

2. There will always be a place in music for a man with a guitar and/or a voice that cracks your heart.

That's what Kurt Cobain was, basically.

I don't think we've had one like that in a long, long time though.

[sendero]

4. I'd like to agree with you....

.... but really his stuff is too good to be considered Today's Country. Today's Country consists mostly of songs that are so compeletely identical between artists, same melodies, same tempo, same vocal styles same, same same - Croce's stuff was a lot more inventive than that.

[OmahaBlueDog]

35. As I said downthread, the real question is "Who would play him today?"

If you say "he's folk music", he'd essentially be relegated to internet radio and NPR. I think songs like "Leroy Brown" would be on country stations today, but that's just me.

[sendero]

36. Radio play..

.. is hard to come by now unless you are one of the record company's promo darlings. Which has little if anything to do with talent.

Fortunately, there is the internet or music would be pretty much dead.

[Honeycombe8]

5. Definitely not.

Are you familiar with folk music and pop?

His music was definitely in the folk genre, and was urban.

Country music: trains, honky tonkin' men or women, man left me, gal left me, woman you can't steal my man, drinkin' & carousin', fightin', etc.

[Patiod]

6. Upper Darby boy would be rollin' over in his grave

to be thought of as "country" (not that there's anything wrong with that....)

Although "Leroy Brown" certainly fits the "drinkin' and carousin', and "Operator" fits the "gal left me" category.

"Operator" is just a lovely song.

[Honeycombe8]

8. Leroy is Bad, man, BAD. More gang-like than rural cowbay bad.

Operator - not sad enuf for country. He's not cryin' in his beer. He's singin' a peppy song to the operator, Guthrie style.

He's rooted in blues, maybe. I think Folk and Blues are related distantly.

Not that I know a lot about music. But being from the south, I've heard a lot of country in my day.

Kris Kristofferon's songs are country...or folk....or who knows what? He can be pure country, or rock, or pop, ....But Croce wasn't like that.

[OriginalGeek]

12. on a side note; I'd pay a bounty to anyone who can find me

a recording of a performance I saw of Kris and his band doing Help Me Make It Through The Night. It was completely rockified up with a hard a driving bass line some great guitar playing and much faster than any other version I've heard him or anyone else do.


I'm not rich so it won't be a big bounty but I saw it on TV one night years ago and have been looking for it ever since.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

16. How would you classify John Denver?

Some of his tunes have been heavily covered by country artists and he frequently used pedal steel guitars in the background but to me he seemed more from the folk tradition. He never had the country accent or twang. And I can remember predominantly rock stations playing Rocky Mountain High and Sunshine On My Shoulder a lot in the 70s.

[oregonjen]

18. Disgusting what Charlie Rich did to John Denver at the CMA's

http://www.countryuniverse.net/2008/11/07/classic-cma-awards-moments-3-charlie-rich-sparks-controversy-1975/



Presenter Charlie Rich fanned the flames of an ongoing battle between country music’s traditional artists and the pop singers making waves in Nashville when he presented the Entertainer of the Year trophy in 1975.

Rich opened the envelope, read it, and then lit a cigarette lighter and burned the envelope. He announced the winner, “My friend, Mister John Denver.” Though he claimed he had overmedicated, Rich’s presentation appeared to be a strong statement against the pop sensibilities of Denver and his counterparts. Denver, accepting via satellite, was unaware of Rich’s actions, and spoke briefly and humbly about his triumph. Furious, industry insiders never again showed outward support to Rich (he had won five CMA awards in the past). His career cooled considerably after the incident. Even though he continued to produce albums frequently until his semi-retirement in 1981, he never added to his list of five #1 albums.

[Honeycombe8]

19. Oh, that's awful! I never heard that. How utterly rude. But it ultimately reflects badly on Rich...

not Denver.

AND it shows he was short sighted. The crossovers were one reason for the country explosion, and tons of $ rolling into the country music business. Patsy Cline was a crossover the other way. What would Rich have thought if someone in pop had done that to Patsy Clin if she'd won best new artist?

I can see where purists want to keep things that way. But nothing stays the same, does it?

[Honeycombe8]

20. Thank God I'm A Country Boy!

I think that son (Thank God I'm A Country Boy!) probably put him into the country genre for that song. But his other songs were more folk (Rocky Mountain High is not country, IMO).

Other songs were country...there was a duet he did with Olivia Newton John that I think got country radio time.

Some artists are mainly one thing, but they do crossover songs. Like Patsy Cline, who was country, but some of her songs crossed over and were played on pop radio stations.

[sadbear]

9. He sang about that stuff, too.

The man was a musical storyteller. The shame about today's music is exactly that a musician like Jim Croce would find a hard time fitting in somewhere. What kind of radio stations play Mumford and Sons, Top 40 only? Do they even have Top 40 stations anymore?

[truedelphi]

23. I don't know if technically we do have top 40 stations,

But almost all radio is played by taped recordings (or its digital equivalent) on rotation.

None of that thrill that radio used to have from mid sixties through the mid eighties: "So hey, there, everybody, if you hang out here on 987 Am on the dial, in just fifteen minutes we are going to be ripping through a brand new on by the Stones."

Followed by the station's catchy jingho.

The DJ's in Chciago during the 1960';s were minor celebrities in their own right, and that tradition continued on till the early eighties. Then Corporate Rat America screwed the pooch, and it's been a while since we can turn on the dial and feel good about the DJ.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. No. I always considered his music to be more along the lines of folk music.

What a shame it was to lose someone so talented just when his career was really coming together. So much music gone from our lives.

[sadbear]

10. And not just music.

He died before I was born, but I could definitely see him branching out into other areas. He was a colorful character who was very at ease around other people. And he had lots of stories to tell, too. Who know how far he could have gone. He was that special.

[Honeycombe8]

21. Yeah...I've thought a time or two that he would've come out with more wonderful songs.

What a loss to the world.

[OmahaBlueDog]

32. "How is music different if Jim Croce lives" is one of the great what-ifs

like Buddy Holly or Jimi Hendrix or Otis Redding.

I don't disagree that his music is folk music. What I'm really asking is "What radio stations would play Croce today?" True folk music has pretty much been relegated to college radio and NPR. I can't see Croce being played on most modern hits stations today, while I can envision airplay on country stations.

[Arkansas Granny]

37. He probably wouldn't be on radio these days. Many artists of that period who are still

recording new music don't get any airtime that I know of. I'm thinking of Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), James Taylor and others of that genre.

[OmahaBlueDog]

38. Taylor is still widely played on adult/contemporart formats

Less so for Cat Stevens.

[malthaussen]

41. I agree, Croce would have a hard time getting airplay.

For one thing, he isn't prepubescent.

-- Mal

[Major Nikon]

13. Here is Croce singing an old country tune

[Honeycombe8]

22. Well, THAT'S a country song, for sure. But it doesn't sound like him.

I wonder if it's really him, or does it come from an album or what? Just because someone once sang one country song doesn't make 'em country. He didn't write it, so I guess he just liked it.

[Major Nikon]

24. It's him

http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Croce-50th-Anniversary-Collection/dp/B000002JPW

Disk 1, track 4

[Honeycombe8]

29. Wow. I never heard that before. Imagine that. Good song, though. nt

[Major Nikon]

30. It's one of my favorites

He takes a classic western song and gives it a folk flair. I wish the recording was better, but on the other hand the poor recording may just add to the ambiance of his version. I bet it was a great song to see live.

[alphafemale]

15. Oh and btw I have tickets to see Elton John

hate me

[OmahaBlueDog]

34. Mrs. OBD has seen him, but I haven't

She saw him around '81. I think that was the tour with "Blue Eyes" and "I Want to Kiss the Bride." She said he was great.

My understanding is that he sings the more recent stuff, and brings his own "voice double" to sing lead on the early stuff, with Sir Elton singing backup. It should be a great show.

[fishwax]

25. He was a crossover -- I always considered him country, because he was in my dad's 8-track collection

His songs were covered by country artists and have gotten airplay on country stations, and he played some straight-up country songs and clearly has influences in that line. But he had a lot of other influences too.

Still, I always considered him a country singer because my dad liked his music. My father, like the patrons of Bob's Country Bunker, was diverse enough in his musical tastes to acknowledge and appreciate both kinds of music that the world has to offer: country and western. So, since the tape box in his truck included Jim Croce's greatest hits, I naturally considered him a country artist. Ditto for John Denver and Gordon Lightfoot. Even as I grew older (and as my dad's tastes relaxed, ever-so-slightly, under the relentless assault of two teenage boys) the association remains strong for me.

[Arkansas Granny]

27. Jim Croce was in my 8-track collection too, along with John Denver and Gordon Lightfoot, and

I am not and have never been country or western. Even Led Zeppelin has been covered by country artists, but that doesn't make them country.

[fishwax]

28. You won't often hear Whole Lotta Love or When the Levee Breaks on Country Radio, though

I don't know how much they play Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, Country Roads, Sundown, and the like on country radio nowadays, but I heard them (and other songs by those artists) on country stations growing up. At any rate, wrt to the tape collection I was only speaking of my logic as a kid. In reality, as I said, Jim Croce wasn't strictly country, but he was a crossover artist whose repertoire included country and country-influenced music.

[pipi_k]

26. It would be a shame

if he were, actually.

Much of today's country music is shit. Absolute shit.

The groups all sound the same. I can't tell one "artist" from another because they mostly all have that certain whiny assed tone to their voices.

The original lyrics suck.

The beat of the songs all sound the same.

Even when they do a remake of an older song, they absolutely slay it.

I'm still cringing over hearing a C & W remake of "Walking In Memphis" I've heard a couple of times. Absolutely murdered.

Jim Croce deserves/would deserve better than to be associated with the likes of that.

[OmahaBlueDog]

33. Country has always been a more uneven genre

"Todays Country" has aimed to give the music more of a popular sensibility. It's more influenced by crossover artists like Jimmy Buffett, and it's more formulaic.

I still here many of the same themes in "Today's Country" that I've always heard - Jesus, drinking, the USA, and screwed up relationships. I hear less about jail and trucking than I did in the 70s.

[lastlib]

40. Most country music today is doing what Rock-n-Roll did in the 70s

[RebelOne]

31. No way. n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

39. Soft Rock with some country background to it. I bet country stations would play it.

His stuff is mostly some type of country - rockabilly fusion or soft ballads.

I'll agree, he wouldn't be classified as anything other than Country because there isn't anything out there right now that sounds like he did.

I guess it would be country be default.

[seanpencil]

42. Croce wouldn't be released today