Friday, July 11, 2014

CD Preview: Jim Croce’s Lost Time In A Bottle

Jim Croce's Lost Time In A Bottle
Singer/songwriter Jim Croce enjoyed a too-brief career – just five studio albums in seven years, from 1966 until his tragic death in a small plane crash in 1973. Only five singles were released during his lifetime, three of them Top Ten hits, including the chart-topping “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” In the wake of Croce’s death, six more singles were released over the following couple of years, most notably “Time In A Bottle,” which went number one in 1973, and “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song,” which hit number nine in 1974.

Croce’s imaginative mix of folksong storytelling, pop melodies, and late 1950s/early ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll innocence struck a chord with a mainstream audiences, albeit briefly, resulting in three Gold™ albums and seemingly endless possibilities. As record labels are want to do, various rights holders have released 18 compilation albums that have seemingly scraped the barrel clean of Croce’s extant recordings. The best of these discs is the posthumous Photographs & Memories: His Greatest Hits, released roughly a year after Croce’s death, the 14-track collection including all of the singer’s biggest hits and quickly achieving Platinum™ sales status. 

On July 22nd, 2014 Cleopatra Records will release what is certain to be one of the more interesting of the post-millennial Croce compilations, Lost Time In A Bottle, and one that offers some long-lost new material. The 24 songs on the collection include rare demo versions of Croce hits like “Operator,” “Time In A Bottle,” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” among others, as well as ten live performances from a February 1973 concert at Harper College. The crown achievement of Lost Time In A Bottle, however, is a previously-unreleased 1964 radio broadcast from a Cazenovia College performance early in Croce’s career, the six songs clearly displaying his rapidly-maturing songwriting and storytelling skills.

Lost Time In A Bottle will initially be released on CD, with a two-album vinyl set to follow. We have the complete track listing below, and a link to buy the CD from Amazon.com because we’re just that helpful...
   
Jim Croce's Lost Time In A Bottle tracklist:

1. Next Time, This Time (Harper College 2/5/73)
2. New York’s Not My Home (Harper College 2/5/73)
3. You Don’t Mess Around With Jim (Harper College 2/5/73)
4. Careful Man (Harper College 2/5/73)
5. A Good Time Man Like Me (Demo)
6. Tractor Trailer Story Intro (Harper College 2/5/73)
7. Speedball Tucker (Demo)
8. Operator (Demo)
9. Hard Time Losin’ Man (Demo)
10. Seems Like Such A Long Time Ago (Demo)
11. It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way (Harper College 2/5/73)
12. Bar Story Intro (Harper College 2/5/73)
13. Roller Derby Queen (Harper College 2/5/73)
14. One Less Set of Footsteps (Harper College 2/5/73)
15. Dreamin’ Again (Harper College 2/5/73)
16. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (Demo)
17. Time In A Bottle (Demo)
18. I Got A Name (Live 1973)
19. Charley Green, Play That Slide Trombone (Cazenovia College 1964)
20. San Francisco Bay Blues (Cazenovia College 1964)
21. Washington At Valley Forge (Cazenovia College 1964)
22. La Bamba (Cazenovia College 1964)
23. Seek and You Shall Find (Cazenovia College 1964)
24. Woke Up This Morning (Cazenovia College 1964)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Jim Croce's Lost Time in a Bottle

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