AJ Croce – The Keswick Theatre – Glenside (A PopEntertainment.com Concert Review)

AJ Croce – The Keswick Theatre – Glenside, PA – January 10, 2025

It’s rather amazing that the night of this show would have been the late Jim Croce’s 82nd birthday. Of course, the beloved singer Croce died way too young in a plane crash when he was only 30 years old, and his career was just starting to take off. 52 years later, that leaves two generations of fans to ponder what he may have done had he survived longer. And, of course, it means that very few current people actually had the opportunity to see Croce in concert.

His son, AJ Croce – who was just under two-years-old when his father died – made a respectable name in the music biz for himself for two or three decades before he ever considered taking on his father’s music. Apparently, he felt the need to prove himself as a musician and songwriter before taking on his father’s huge legacy. And while he never quite became as big as his dad, he is a respected and long-working musician, releasing 11 albums (with a 12th coming soon) and getting terrific reviews.

However, in recent years, AJ has started putting together periodic “Croce Sings Croce” shows between his own gigs. This latest show, opening a three-day east coast swing, is being sold as “The Jim Croce Birthday Bash,” which will warm AJ up for his own “Heart of the Eternal” tour which kicks off in February. It’s nice that Croce decided to celebrate his father’s birthday in his native Philadelphia area. Since most people never had the chance to see his father perform, this is as close as we’re going to get to an evening of Jim Croce.

Of course, the concert is not made up of all Jim’s music. AJ performed some of his own songs, as well as some covers of songs which inspired both him and his father as musicians. And there was a special surprise guest star who also did one of his own songs, as well as dueting on one of Jim’s tunes and also a song that the guest wrote with AJ. (More on that later).

Croce was introduced onto the stage with old film footage of his father introducing his toddler Adrian James to the people. Then the stage lights came up and the band came on. AJ Croce came in hot, starting the show with a rollicking piano-based version of his dad’s hit story-song “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim.” With a smoking backing band made up of drummer Gary Mallaber (Van Morrison/Steve Miller Band), bassist/singer David Barard (Dr. John), guitarist/violinist James Pennebaker (Delbert McClinton) and background singers Jackie Wilson and Katrice Donaldson, Croce burned down the house on this one.

Other hits came fast, with a sweet version of “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)” coming a few songs later. AJ explained that his dad had started the song when he was in the military back in the 60s, listening to soldiers calling home. However, it wasn’t until he grew older and experienced loss and tragedy for himself that Croce was ready to finish and record the song.

Then came a couple of smart covers. The first one was “Nothing Can Change My Love” by Sam Cooke. Jim used to cover the song in his early days, and AJ was always a major fan of Cooke’s work. In fact, he told a remarkable story told to him by his early mentor, singer/songwriter Floyd Dixon, about Dixon and Cooke being out with Ray Charles one night, and because they were too drunk, they decided to get Charles – who was blind – to drive them home.

After that came a pounding piano-based cover of Billy Preston’s “Nothing From Nothing.” Other mid-show highlights included terrific takes of “Working at the Car Wash Blues,” “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be a Brighter Day” and “New York Is Not My Home.”

At the start of a lovely cover of his dad’s “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In a Song,” another Philly-born music legend quietly slipped onto the stage to sing the lead vocals. John Oates (of Hall and Oates fame) took over with AJ singing backing vocals on that song. Oates then told a hysterical story about the last time he had been to Glenside. In his early years as a musician, he had to make some pocket cash teaching guitar at the local Keswick Music Works. (It was open until a few years ago!) However, one day he made the mistake of coming into work high and fell asleep in the middle of a lesson, getting him fired in the process. Oates then did a torrid cover of his own band’s “She’s Gone” (it’s notable how differently Oates handled the vocals than his former bandmate Daryl Hall has always done).

Speaking of different versions of the same song, Oates then announced that he would be doing something new even for him when they did the next song “Reunion,” a song which Oates and AJ Croce wrote together and have both recorded. (The song is the title track of Oates’ latest solo album and will also be on Croce’s upcoming Heart of the Eternal.) Oates explained that they would perform the song in two very different and distinct ways over the course of the one performance, and that they did. Oates started off playing the song as a sweet and pretty acoustic folk-rock ballad. Then Croce took over, turning the song into a jumping New Orleans barrelhouse piano jive.

Another one of the funny anecdotes that AJ told on stage was about when he was eight years old at a Hollywood party with his mom and the host – a rock dude named Rod Stewart – had to lull him to sleep by singing him a ribald Scottish ballad from the 1700s. Then Croce returned the favor by putting together a ripping version of Stewart’s old Faces classic “Stay With Me.”

After a series of more obscure Jim songs requested by the audience (including “Speedball Tucker” and “One Less Set of Footsteps”), Croce pulled out “Name of the Game,” a song which his father was working on but hadn’t finished when he died. Years later, AJ found it and completed the tune, which he called his one true collaboration with his father. Then Croce closed things out with some of the biggest hits, including a joyous run through “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” – in which he brought out his mother Ingrid to help with backing vocals – and a sweet and slightly sped up take on “I Got a Name.”

The encore started with film footage of Jim singing the first verse of his classic, pensive ballad, “Time in a Bottle,” and then AJ and the band swooped in and took over lead vocals, although his dad did still do some duet parts through the film footage. It was a beautiful and appropriate farewell and tribute to an artist who left the world much too early.

Jay S. Jacobs