Storyteller Jim Croce played give and take with country music

Storyteller Jim Croce played give and take with country music

When folk-soft rock singer Jim Croce died in a plane crash in 1973, his career as a musician had barely started. Since embarking on a musical career in 1966, he had only released five studio albums but still met with commercial success. Until 1972, he worked a series of odd-jobs — including driving a truck — to make ends meet as he wrote songs and performed at small venues in the northeastern U.S. While Croce was never marketed as a pure country…