Never let it be said that A.J. Croce used nepotism as a crutch toward crafting his own solo career. As the son of late singer-songwriter Jim Croce, it would have been easy for the former to come out of the gate trading on his father’s legacy and song canon.
Instead, A.J. Croce kicked off his career with a self-titled 1993 debut produced by storied names T-Bone Burnett and John Simon—a 12-song jazz outing that cracked the Top 10 jazz charts. Three decades-plus later, the younger Croce has released his 11th album, the Shooter Jennings-produced Heart of the Eternal.
Croce is rightfully proud of his latest release, particularly considering he got to work on the album with his touring band and old friend Jennings.
“I hadn’t seen Shooter in something like 20 years, so I cold-called him and asked if he would be into doing a record,” Croce said in a recent interview. “He said he just took over Studio 3 at Sunset Sound and he’d love for this to be the first record. I sent him a few raw demos and that was that. We dove in and had a blast.”
Croce and Jennings go back to the ’90s, when the former was introduced to the late Waylon Jennings when both were playing consecutive nights at L.A.’s House of Blues. “I remember Waylon came backstage wearing one of my t-shirts and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’”
Croce subsequently met the Highwayman’s progeny Shooter as a shy and sweet 16-year-old, and he’s thrilled he got to work on the new album with him. Having worked with an array of storied producers that include the aforementioned Burnett and Simon, as well as Mitchell Froom, Jim Keltner and Dan Penn, Croce is quick to point out how Jennings’ instincts and studio prowess mirrored those other studio wizards.
“Like all those other producers I worked with, Shooter has that ability to work around the idea of a creative happy accident,” Croce explained. “It doesn’t matter if it’s written in black and white with whatever arrangements or players may be lined up, if something beautiful happens in the process, Shooter has no problem saying, ‘That’s really cool. Let’s keep that and work around that idea.’ We have different tastes in things, but I think they really complemented each other in what we were trying to accomplish with this. We have a lot in common and just really connected.”
One thing both men have in common is not only being sons of accomplished musical fathers, but how both blazed their own paths and eschewed the pitfalls of being nepo-babies who relied on their respective parents’ own legacies. Croce agreed with that observation when it was presented to him.
“We both worked for anything we accomplished,” Croce said. “Neither of us had an inheritance, and it was different than some people’s experiences being second generation.”
That said, Croce’s last tour was the “Croce Plays Croce 50th Anniversary Tour,” on which he played a complete set of classics by his late father mixed in with some of his own songs. For the Pennsylvania native, the choice to dip into the Jim Croce catalog was a long time coming and a venture he admits he held off doing despite how financially unwise it may have been to wait so long to go down this path.
“I had grown up with my father’s records, and the huge influence I felt was predominantly from the music he owned—his record collection,” Croce said. “Working with Leon Russell, we connected on all this music and I realized that he and my father were the same age, the same generation. They were listening to older music and finding a way to turn their influences into something completely original. I think it was in that moment that I recognized that it was something I had in common with my father—this deep love of music in a way that didn’t matter that it wasn’t about recognition. It was about the pure love of this art. Just when no one expected me to play my father’s music is when it became fun to play.”
For the “Heart of the Eternal” tour, Croce is hitting the road with a longtime crew of sidemen that includes drummer Garry Mallaber (Van Morrison, Steve Miller Band), bassist David Berard (Dr. John) and guitarist/violinist/fiddler James Pennebaker (Delbert McClinton). And given how deep his own catalog is, Croce said it’s quite a balancing act to provide a broad scope of past and present to his audience.
“Given the fact that there have been 21 songs of mine to date that have charted in different categories and genres, how do I pick and choose what to play?” he said. I have to keep those in mind as a factor because they clearly connected with people at one time or another. I also look at songs that help to tell a story for the arc of the performance. I try and keep a really good balance of new and old, so people get to hear things that are familiar and also hear things that are deeper cuts they may have forgotten about.”