Jim Croce’s legacy is carried on through his son, A.J. Croce.
The “Time in a Bottle” singer and his wife, Ingrid Croce, welcomed their first and only child together in 1971, son Adrian James “A.J.” Croce. Sadly, days before A.J. turned 2, his father died in a plane crash in September 1973, leaving behind his family.
Jim’s lasting mark on the music industry has lived on through his son, who was inspired to start playing music himself, including the guitar. He told PEOPLE in January 2024 that after a house fire destroyed many of the family’s belongings when he was a teen, one of his dad’s guitars — a 1933 Gibson L-00 — was able to be salvaged, and he was “inspired” to learn to play it.
Even years after his father’s death, A.J. has continued to find new ways of connecting with Jim. He said that in recent years, he discovered a homemade tape that his dad recorded performing a variety of blues and folk songs.
“There were deep cuts of Bessie Smith, Pink Anderson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Skip James. Old Blues, old country,” he explained to PEOPLE. “Every song that he played was a song I had been playing since I was a teen, but I’d never heard him play them! It made the hair on my neck stand up.”
Here’s everything to know about Jim Croce’s son, A.J. Croce.
He was born in 1971
Jim and Ingrid welcomed A.J., born Adrian James Croce, on Sept. 28, 1971.
Before his father’s death, A.J. lived with his parents in a farmhouse outside of Philadelphia. Jim wrote some of his biggest hit songs at the house, which also inspired many of his album covers with their farmhouse architecture, as shown off by A.J. during a June 2022 segment of CBS Sunday Morning.
A.J. said that songs including “Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” “New York’s Not My Home,” “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy)” were all written at the family’s home in Pennsylvania where he was raised.
His parents were both musicians
A.J. inherited his musical abilities from both of his parents.
Jim and Ingrid met during the 1960s, when they were both musicians in their own right. Ingrid described the duo as “bohemians” who were “performing the college concert circuit and at hootenannies and bars that erupted into near-riots” on her website. She said that they had signed to Capitol Records and were able to tour across the United States.
Before his career took off, Jim balanced side jobs while still pursuing music. It wasn’t until 1971 that he began to gain recognition as an artist, which included performances on The Tonight Show and having several Top 10 songs to his name.
His dad’s hit song “Time in a Bottle” was written for him
One of Jim’s biggest hits, “Time in a Bottle,” was inspired by his son. The late musician had written the song when he learned that his wife was expecting their first child together.
“I went to a doctor to find out if I could get pregnant and after he examined me, he told me that I was pregnant,” Ingrid told Top 2000 à Go-Go in 2012. “I told Jim and Jim had this look of utter fear and excitement because he knew that if we were going to have a child, he needed to become a professional musician. That night, he sat down at the kitchen table and he started to write ‘Time in a Bottle.’ “
When it comes to his own connection with his dad’s music, A.J. said that “Time in a Bottle” has more meaning to him than some of his other songs, calling it “incredibly emotional” during a June 2022 segment of CBS Sunday Morning.
“It was written for me,” he said. “It sums up this emotion that he felt for my mother, for myself. I feel all kinds of things. I feel joy, a sense of thoughtfulness.”
His dad died before he turned 2
A.J. was just shy of his second birthday when his father was killed in a plane crash on Sept. 20, 1973, along with five others.
After nearly a decade of supplementing his income as a musician with other jobs, Jim hit his stride in the 18 months before his death, earning three top 10 songs. He was on a charter plane in Natchitoches, La., after a show, heading to his next concert, when the aircraft crashed into a tree during takeoff and killed everyone onboard the aircraft.
Four days after the fatal crash, Ingrid had received a letter that Jim mailed before the flight had taken off that included a message for their son, PEOPLE reported in January 2024. The message read, “Give a kiss to my little man and tell him Daddy loves him. Remember, it’s the first 60 years that count, and I’ve got 30 more to go.”
Despite being young when his dad died, A.J. shared on Instagram in June 2024 that he is able to remember his father, though he described the feeling as “dreamlike.”
“I remember him holding me,” he recalled in a video. “I remember him playing guitar and singing. I remember feeling safe, but it’s all very ethereal.”
He was legally blind for several years during childhood
A.J. was temporarily blind for a portion of his childhood. The musician opened up about the ordeal on a January 2022 episode of the Blind Abilities podcast, sharing that he was blind for six years of his life from ages 4 to 10.
During the episode, he said that “the events that led” to his blindness “were even more traumatic than the blindness itself.” He described his mother’s then-boyfriend after his father’s death as “very abusive.”
Ingrid sent A.J. away to boarding school after witnessing how he was being treated. However, A.J. had an untreated ear infection that was not dealt with. When his mom visited him, she realized that he had gone blind and took him to the hospital. A.J. said that his infection had worsened to the point where he had what he described as “brain tumor syndrome.”
Today, A.J. is partially sighted and can see while wearing glasses out of his left eye. Due to being temporarily blind from ages 4 to 10, he experiences “curious things” with his vision, including difficulty seeing contrast and depth of field.
He is a professional musician
In the decades after his father’s death, A.J. has been able to sustain a successful career as a musician.
His experience with music started when he was a child, with A.J. sharing on an October 2023 episode of the You Matter! podcast that he would start to gravitate toward the piano before he could even walk.
“There was one at my grandmother’s house. It was something I loved,” he said. “Growing up there was an upright piano at my house and so I learned, and I knew right away it was something.”
The star continued to hit milestones as he got older, including playing a bat mitzvah for $20 when he was 12, starting to tour when he was 16 and playing sessions on piano for “heroes” of his when he was 17.
His website states that he toured with legends including B.B. King and Ray Charles before he turned 21. Over the years, he’s also performed with Willie Nelson, the Neville Brothers and more. He has also co-written songs with Leon Russell and Gary Nicholson.
Over the course of his career, A.J. has released 10 studio albums that showcase his genre-bending style, which includes blues, jazz, pop, soul and rock and roll. While he also plays the guitar, A.J. has become known as a piano player and vocalist.
He didn’t start performing his father’s music until later in life
For more than two decades of his career, A.J. steered clear of performing his father’s music. He told PEOPLE in January 2024 that he “didn’t feel there was integrity capitalizing on his music without making a mark of my own.”
After A.J. carved out his own place in the music industry, he said a turning point for his relationship with his father’s music took place in 2012. At the time, he was at a party celebrating what would have been his dad’s 70th birthday, and in front of the crowd, he performed a handful of his dad’s classics.
“I thought I was going to have an audience of people sitting with their arms crossed like a classical critic, studying every note and seeing if I played it exactly like my father,” A.J. explained to PEOPLE. “But I discovered it was the opposite. I had the joy of being able to both connect with something that meant so much to people, and at the same time make it completely alive and new.”
A.J. has toured the country with his Croce Plays Croce act, including a tour continuing into 2024 that celebrates the 50th Anniversary of his father’s final two albums. The performance includes a set formed by songs by Jim, A.J.’s original music and songs that served as an influence to both his father and himself.
“I play a different show each night,” he said of the show. “I always open it up to the audience to shout out what they want to hear. I didn’t want the show to be just nostalgia. I wanted it to be living, breathing and vital.”
He was married for over 20 years and has two children
A.J. was married to his wife, Marlo Gordon Croce, for more than two decades. The couple wed in August 1994 and were married for 24 years before Marlo died in 2018 of a heart virus.
After his wife’s death, A.J. released a music video for his song “Cures Like Medicine,” which he said on social media was a “thank you note” to his late wife.
“For 28 years I had a muse in my life,” he wrote. “She was always honest about my work and never hesitated to say that she loved or didn’t love something I wrote. She was a musical encyclopedia and understood references that only the most educated of critics could catch.”
A.J. added that the song was the last one he wrote for his 2017 album Just Like Medicine. He said that, at the time, it was a “love letter to my best friend.”
“When she passed away suddenly of a rare illness, I felt lost,” he further explained. “It’s taken time for me to be able to feel creative again. I felt that I needed to send her a posthumous love letter in gratitude for the life we shared.”
A.J. and Marlo welcomed two children during their marriage: a daughter, Camille, and a son, Elijah.
Not much is known about A.J.’s children, but he told the Ludington Daily News in March 2024 that his son was pursuing an acting career in Los Angeles, while his daughter was not interested at all in a career in the arts, explaining, “I think she prefers to have more stability.”
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