New York's Not My Home

Recorded between 1971–1972 at The Hit Factory Studio in New York City, Jim Croce’s third album was an immediate chart topper. The record spent ninety-three weeks on the charts, longer than any other Croce album, holding the number one position on both the U.S. Billboard 200 and Canadian RPM 100 and was the best selling album in the U.S. for five weeks, all in the year of 1974. However, ‘You Don’t Mess Around With Jim’ was at first rejected by about forty different labels, until Croce ultimately signed with ABC Records, after submitting cuts from a cassette recording of the completed album.

The album is a lyrical masterpiece. Both singles, the title track and ‘Operator (That’s Not the Way it Feels)’ show Croce’s range as a songwriter. ‘You Don’t Mess Around With Jim’ tells the fictional story of pool hustler “Big” Jim Walker wreaking havoc in an underground pool hall on 42nd Street in New York City while ‘Operator’ was inspired by Croce’s own military service. He saw lines of soldiers waiting to use the outdoor phone on base, calling their wives or girlfriends to see if their Dear John letter was true.

Another song off the album, ‘Time in a Bottle’, became an immediate fan favorite, received so much airplay on the radio, and a demand for a single release was built. On the night of Thursday, September 20, 1973, during Croce's ‘Life and Times’ tour, Croce, at only thirty years old, and five others were killed when their chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed during takeoff in Natchitoches, Louisiana. ABC had not originally released ‘Time in a Bottle’ as a single, Croce's untimely death gave its lyrics, dealing with mortality and the wish to have more time, an additional resonance. The strong performance of this posthumous single release was what landed ‘You Don't Mess Around with Jim’ the best selling album slot in the U.S.

Favorite song on the album: Operator (That’s Not the Way it Feels)