A.J. Croce honors his legendary father, Jim Croce, with a new tour, playing the Kodak Center Main Theater, 200 West Ridge Road, Greece, on November 7, 2023 at 7:30 PM.
According to A.J. you can expect, “So much fun” at the show. “This is my opportunity to celebrate my father’s musical legacy. We play all the hits. Half way through the show, we open up to audience requests, whatever they want to hear. The requests come fast and furious. Depending where I am standing onstage, I play guitar or piano. Every show will be a different experience. We are not playing to pre-recorded music, everything is completely live, it’s really fun to do it that way.”
A.J. Croce is a gifted, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. His music is based in American roots, a mix of rock and roll, jazz, pop, blues and country. Over the past three decades, he has established his reputation as a piano player and vocal stylist who pulls from a host of musical traditions and anti-heroes — part New Orleans, part juke joint, part soul. From his ten studio albums, it’s clear that he holds an abiding love for all types of musical genres. A virtuosic piano player, A.J toured with B.B. King and Ray Charles before reaching the age of 21, and over his career, he has performed with a wide range of legendary musicians, from Willie Nelson to the Neville Brothers, to Béla Fleck and Ry Cooder. He has also co-written songs with such formidable tunesmiths as Leon Russell, Dan Penn, Robert Earl Keen, and multi-Grammy winner Gary Nicholson.
On this tour, Croce will be backed by a renowned group of Grammy winning musicians. Band members include, on drums, Gary Mallaber, from Buffalo, New York. Mallaber has played with Van Morrison, Steve Miller, Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt. On bass and singing, from New Orleans, is David Barard, who played with Dr. John for 40 years and also with B.B. King and Etta James. On guitar and violin is, James Pennebaker, Croce met Pennebaker in Austin, Texas when he was playing with Lee Roy Parnell. Pennebaker has also played with Delbert McClinton and John Fogerty. A.J. will be accompanied by background singers, Jackie Wilson and Katrice Donaldson. “We get some beautiful four part harmonies,” Croce said.
The show will include a moving, multi-media experience in which A.J. will perform his own songs, in addition to tracks from Jim Croce’s mega-successful albums. He said, “There is video footage and photo collage going on behind the band. Every night it will be different, depending on the requests.”
THE DEFINITIVE CROCE, released this year for what would have been Jim’s 80th birthday, before his untimely passing, is a 3 CD or 3 LP release which includes the iconic albums, “LIFE AND TIMES,” “I GOT A NAME” and “YOU DON’T MESS AROUND.” A.J. said, “We’ll be playing songs representative from all three albums, and also some songs the audience might not know from more obscure artists that I realized connected me and my father. It was those songs that eventually led me to do this show in the first place.”
As a three-year-old, A.J. listened to, and played piano along with, his father’s records. “It had an influence on my stuff, it flows, and tells a story, as only music can.” As a teenager A.J. played in jazz clubs and piano bars where it was natural to get requests. He enjoys playing songs that aren’t planned, “I’m used to that. I like the element of improv in there. The audience makes the show. When I have that connection, it is so much of what my father did. He told stories, the songs come from the stories. That connection is important, it’s what makes the shows unique. Paying tribute has so many different layers of emotion in there. The way the audience reacts changes the way I’m playing the songs. When I see so many in the audience singing along with the lyrics, in so many ways, it is a really special thing.”
“People often come in thinking the show will be a quiet, nostalgic, precious display of my father’s songs – but it’s not precious at all,” he says. “We give them an energetic, live show. The audience expects one thing, but by the time they leave, they realize they’ve experienced something completely different — and they leave, not only with a new perspective on my father, but as fans of mine as well. That’s something that has also made this whole experience really amazing.”
Croce has roots in Rochester, he said, “My grandmother, my father’s mother, is from Rochester. I have many cousins in Rochester and I’m looking forward to seeing them.”
For more about A.J. Croce visit www.ajcrocemusic.com
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