A.J. Croce’s family crossroads

Fittingly, the first song A.J. Croce ever recorded from his late father Jim Croce’s catalog was “I Got A Name.” He’d done hits like “Time In A Bottle” and “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” during Croce Plays Croce concerts for a few years, and a bit reluctantly at that. The decision to truly embrace the tribute show after a long and successful solo career involved some divine intervention, A.J. said recently.

When Jim Croce died in a 1973 plane crash, his son was 2 years old. One way he got to know him was as an archivist, poring over reels of tape for clues about his artistic process.

A fourth-generation musician on both sides of his family, A.J. Croce was destined to perform, but his apple landed away from the tree. He grew up playing piano, not guitar like his dad, and his tastes leaned toward blues, jazz and R&B instead of lyric-driven folk rock. A.J. went on to make multiple acclaimed albums rooted in a style one writer described as “part New Orleans, part juke joint, part soul.”

One day a few years ago A.J. Croce stumbled upon a crossroads while listening to his father’s writing tapes. When he wasn’t touring, Jim Croce would record ideas into a Wollensak recorder, and one particular reel was filled with material his son recognized immediately — they were selections he’d been performing for years.

“It gave me chills,” Croce said. “It wasn’t just obscure old jazz and blues and early country artists, but the exact, very obscure songs. So it was Fats Waller, who’s not obscure; but it wasn’t ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ or ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ — it was “You’re Not The Only Oyster In The Stew,” which was one of the first songs that I played on a demo for Columbia way back in the late ’80s, early ’90s.”

Twelve of 15 were songs he’d done; Croce began to look at the connection to his father as more than biological.

“I’d probably been asked my whole career to perform his music, and as much as I love his songs, I was first and foremost a piano player,” he said, “and I was also more likely to play a song by Ray Charles or the Rolling Stones than something by my father. That really inspired me to look at the concert not just as a tribute to his music but to the connection that we have to music in general.”

Thus, the upcoming Croce Plays Croce concerts in New Hampshire and across the river in Vermont will blend selections from Jim Croce’s brief but prolific career — three albums made over 18 months in the early ’70s — and A.J.’s genre-crossing catalog, along with the music that inspired them both.

“The influences that we both share are so vast, it could be so many different things,” Croce said. “You can hear Jimmy Reed on songs like ‘You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,’ and Lieber & Stoller’s songwriting on many of the others, whether it’s ‘Leroy Brown’ or ‘Car Wash Blues’ — those sort of R&B influenced things.”

The show also celebrates Jim Croce’s innovative songwriting approach, which A.J. believes came into its own with his most enduring hit, “Time In a Bottle.” His dad wrote the song for him.

“It was sort of a musical epiphany that happened,” he said. “I think he felt like, ‘This is my last chance to do this for a living; I have a son now, I have a family,’ and he really went with it.”

Croce knows the foundational elements of his dad’s work, but believes it’s the relatability of hits such as “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels),” “Lover’s Cross” and character songs like “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” “Rapid Roy” and “Speedball Tucker” that ultimately set him apart.

“Being a record collector and sort of a musicologist, I think I can hear where those influences come from,” he said. “But what he does is so unique, different than almost anyone I’ve heard. He personalizes it from the perspective of not just him seeing these people, or being present around these people, but also making heroes out of sort of everyday folks.”

Croce Plays Croce

When: Thursday, Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Flying Monkey, 39 Main St., Plymouth
Tickets: $39 and up at flyingmonkeynh.com (13+)

Featured photo: A.J. Croce. Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins.