The son of legendary folk singer-songwriter Jim Croce, A.J. Croce’s 30-year touring and recording career has produced ten studio albums that have been released via both major and independent labels, and have charted 20 Top 20 singles and all ten albums on the radio including on Top 40, Americana, and Blues.
A.J. taught himself the piano during a 6-year period in his youth (age 4-10) when he was blind in both eyes due to serious physical abuse from his mother’s then-boyfriend. (This began two years of the death of A.J.’s father Jim.) A.J. began performing in his teens, playing with local Southern California bands and eventually carving out a name for himself.
A virtuoso piano player, he has performed at a TED Talk and gave a master class at the University of Barcelona. Croce has performed on major talk shows and news programs including The Late Show, The Tonight Show, The Today Show, CNN, MTV, and VH1. He’s toured with such esteemed artists as Willie Nelson, Lenny Kravitz, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and B.B. King. While his last album, Just Like Medicine, paired him with producer and soul legend Dan Penn and an all-star cast of players and guests like Vince Gill and Steve Cropper, his new album was born of memories — of favorite artists and shows, but mostly, of late-night gatherings with groups of friends, many of them fellow musicians, with Croce at the piano taking requests.
Croce revisits these musical evenings on By Request (out on Compass Records) with 12 personally curated covers that traverse decades and genres, propelled by his spirited, piano mastery and emotive vocals.
For most of his career, A.J. has stayed away from playing his father’s music publicly, being determined to make it on his own ability. But in 2018, he began a periodic show called Croce Plays Croce where he digs into his father’s repertoire, often providing stories as to the source of his his father’s inspiration.
It is this show that he brings to the Arcada Theatre Friday, February 3 at 8:30pm. Tickets are $49 and can purchased here. The Arcada is located at 105 E. Main Street in St. Charles.
