# Could Jim Croce be considered a "deep track" artist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [March 13, 2021, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807 "2021-03-13T04:18:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2021, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/21 "2021-03-13T16:56:12Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > ETA: I attempted to quote @Author_Balk’s post but the software wouldn’t allow it - is this something new? If you quoted his entire post, Discourse automatically takes it out of your post – it has a “feature” that quoting the entirety of the post that’s directly above yours is deemed unnecessary. If you only quote part of his post, it’ll keep the quote in yours. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/22 "2021-03-13T16:59:37Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > In that sense I would call him a deep track artist, although I’m not exactly sure what that even means. Yeah, I’m not sure that “deep track artist” is really a thing. As I noted upthread, the term “deep track,” to me, in the context of radio play/format, is playing album tracks from popular artists that _aren’t_ their singles, hits, or well-known songs. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/23 "2021-03-13T17:41:51Z")
I always like Croce. His career was too tragically short. I wonder if [Stranger Things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMVyn3XwOlA) has given him some recent recognition. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2021, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/24 "2021-03-13T18:07:05Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I wonder if [Stranger Things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMVyn3XwOlA) has given him some recent recognition. Possibly so, as well as Quicksilver’s scene from \*X-Men: Days of Future Past": [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/T9GFyZ5LREQ/hqdefault.jpg "QuickSilver Kitchen Scene - X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014) Movie Clip HD") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9GFyZ5LREQ) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2021, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/25 "2021-03-13T18:09:47Z")
Every time I listen to “[Rapid Roy (the Stock Car Boy)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aUl9l1O7sE)” I contemplate getting a tattoo that just says “Hey”. But then I get over it. (Also, there is no similar compulsion to get one that says “Baby”. ) If you listen to that, the deliberately-off musical bit under “dirt track demon” really gives it an odd charm. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/26 "2021-03-14T05:19:39Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I also think that his lack of visibility now is that 1970s folk rock / singer-songwriter stuff doesn’t fit into many current radio formats. Not just that, but his music is 50+ years old and is a little too recent to for ‘oldies’ stations and not ‘rock’ enough for classic rock stations. The only place you really find it is on easy listening stations which, the 15-35 demographic really doesn’t listen to him unless they’re on an elevator. In other words, they’ve probably heard the songs but it doesn’t really register. Think of it like a 50 or 60 year old hearing Stained or the Jonas Brothers. You’ve almost certainly heard them, but could name a song by them? Cat Stevens, IMO, is another one caught in that same trap. Fine a 20 year old that knows Moonshadow or Morning Has Broken or really anything outside of passing awareness of Wild World. And Cat (or is it Yusuf now I think) is still playing and last I heard still touring. I’d _love_ to go see him. Back when I was in college (late 90’s/early 00’s) I went to an Arlo Guthrie concert (it was on campus). I was probably the youngest person there by a margin of 40 or 50 years). ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/27 "2021-03-14T05:40:21Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Croce’s not an obscure artist per se – he had several significant hits which have stood the test of time. But, as @TriPolar notes, he died quite young, and only a few months after he really started getting airplay. So, his body of work is pretty small, and even most people who are familiar with him only know two or three of his songs. That’s pretty much how I relate to Croce. I can name three songs of his, and one of them, “Time in a Bottle,” I often forget was him. Croce died nearly 50 years ago, before I was born, and I’d be surprised if many people under 40 even knew his name these days. I bet a lot of people don’t even know who Bad, Bad Leroy Brown was. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/28 "2021-03-14T05:51:05Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I bet a lot of people don’t even know who Bad, Bad Leroy Brown was. He’s the baddest man in the whole damn town. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/29 "2021-03-14T05:53:09Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Not just that, but his music is 50+ years old and is a little too recent to for ‘oldies’ stations and not ‘rock’ enough for classic rock stations. The oldies station in Dallas, Texas, 98.7 K-LUV, had Croce songs in their rotation back in the mid to late 80s. At the time, they played music from the mid-50s through the early 1970s (pre-disco). But as time passed their format changed and in the late 90s they dropped music from the 50s and early 60s and adding more from the 70s and 80s. When I visited Dallas in 2005 I turned to K-LUV only to find Guns ‘n Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” I don’t think 50+ years is too recent for an oldies stations I actually think it’s too far. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/30 "2021-03-14T13:55:04Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > When I visited Dallas in 2005 I turned to K-LUV only to find Guns ‘n Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” I don’t think 50+ years is too recent for an oldies stations I actually think it’s too far. Sounds like your oldies station is a Classic Rock Station. When I think Oldies, I’m thinking The Temptations and The Supremes and Franky Valli, Buddy Holly, Everly Brothers, Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye. So a generation (musically) or two before 70’s classic rock took over. While I have an XM, when I listen to FM radio I’ve noticed ‘my’ 80s and '90s music starting to show up on the Classic Rock station, but, and maybe this is different for you, we have a station for Classic Rock and a station for The Oldies with very little overlap between them, at least last time I checked. > [@beowulff](#): > > I always like Croce. His career was too tragically short. I know it wasn’t the point you were making, but look at someone like Janis Joplin, she released Bobby McGee, Mercedes Benz, Cry Baby and Piece of my Heart in a 4 year span and croaked at 27 (in 1970, 2 years before some of those songs came out) and most people might struggle to list more than those couple of songs, but they could at least come up with one or two. I just think (again, like Cat Stevens) he was caught up in that Easy Listening genre which isn’t exactly known for making long lasting impressions on people or getting tons of air play 50 years later. And speaking of Buddy Holly, he (and/or His Crickets) released, That’ll Be The Day, Oh Boy, Maybe Baby, Peggy Sue and It’s So Easy inside of two years over 60 years ago. Most won’t struggle to name a few songs by him. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/31 "2021-03-14T14:46:29Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > > [@Odesio](#): > > > > I bet a lot of people don’t even know who Bad, Bad Leroy Brown was. > > He’s the baddest man in the whole damn town. Wait, are you claiming he’s even badder than ol’ King Kong? mmm ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/32 "2021-03-14T14:48:33Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Wait, are you claiming he’s even badder than ol’ King Kong? I am. And I’m telling you he’s also meaner than a junkyard dog. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/33 "2021-03-14T14:48:49Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Wait, are you claiming he’s even badder than ol’ King Kong? And meaner that a @Mean\_MrMustard junkyard dog. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/34 "2021-03-14T15:24:36Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Sounds like your oldies station is a Classic Rock Station Sounds like it could be a format called “classic hits” which is a little more expansive genre-wise (rock, pop, disco, r&b). Our “classic hits” station will play both stuff like, say, Beat It and Stayin’ Alive to Welcome to the Jungle and Sweet Home Alabama. In Chicago, I think Me-TV FM 87.7, comes closest to the Oldies stations I grew up in the early 90s with, but it extends into the 80s. When I was growing up, “Oldies” was about 1955 (“Only You” by the Platters was probably among the eariest they played) to about 1972 /73 (I’m pretty sure they had Bad Bad Leroy Brown on their playlist.) ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/35 "2021-03-14T15:43:36Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Sounds like your oldies station is a Classic Rock Station. When I think Oldies, I’m thinking The Temptations and The Supremes and Franky Valli, Buddy Holly, Everly Brothers, Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye. I’m not sure what their format is these days and it’s been nearly 16 years so I can’t remember if I heard anything other than rock. I just remembered “Welcome to the Jungle” because I had the _Appetite for Destruction_ album from 1987 and couldn’t believe I was hearing it on the oldies, classic rock, classic hits, or whatever format they were calling it then station. I have since come to terms with the fact that I’m aging and some of the music I grew up with is farther from me now than music from the 60s was when I was a kid. We don’t have any stations here in Little Rock that regularly plays music from 1955-1973 anymore since the last one switched formats more than 15 years ago. There are some stations in Arkansas that still play those oldies but I can’t pick them up in my car where I do all my radio listening. I can’t remember the last time I heard Elvis on the radio aside from “Blue Christmas” and it’s even getting harder to hear the Beatles around here. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/36 "2021-03-15T12:02:04Z")
If you like his music you should pick up his live album. The man could tell a story. He also talks about how he wrote some of his songs, which was quite interesting. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/37 "2021-03-15T12:39:58Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > He passed away at the young age of 30, and his music up until then was very 60s-70s-ish. You Don’t Mess Around WIth Jim and Bad Bad Leroy Brown were typical of his style, but Time in Bottle was far more mainstream and well covered after his death. **Not many people born after his death in 1973 are familiar with his work although it used to pop up on oldies channels before 90s songs were oldies**. I don’t know what makes a “deep track” artist but he is fairly obscure. That’s me all right… Born in Dec 1970, I don’t remember hearing Jim Croce very much on pop radio in the 1970s but I do remember hearing those songs a lot on the “Light FM” type radio station my mom would set the car radio to in the 1980s, particularly the tear-jerker songs _I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song_, _Operator_, and _Time In A Bottle_. I liked them enough to buy an LP record of _Jim Croce’s Greatest Hits_ - in what is almost a comically stereotypical 1980s scenario now, I wanted to put two of those songs on a mixtape for a girl I had a crush on _blush_ _cringe_. I recognized “Photographs and Memories” and “I Got A Name” when I played the rest of the record, but definitely first encountered “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” from it, and not from the radio. And that was in 1987 or so. I imagine good ol’ Jim is relegated to the deep recesses of oldies or Easy Listening music nowadays, since the same local Oldies station that played Elvis and doo-wop in the 1980s now plays hits by Prince, Guns ‘n’ Roses, and En Vogue on their regular playlist. ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2021, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807/38 "2021-03-15T13:49:22Z")
I admit I mostly hear Croce on The Bridge these days, but growing up I heard all his biggest hits on the Oldies station and even today might hear one of them on the local Oldies/Classic Hits station (they play 60s, 70s, 80s pop and rock, without getting into hard rock or heavy disco). Powers &8^] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-jim-croce-be-considered-a-deep-track-artist/937807.md?page=1)