A.J. Croce will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday night at the Lima Civic Center.
Courtesy of Michael J Media
LIMA — A.J. Croce only recently began performing his father Jim’s hits in concert.
But bringing his Croce Plays Croce Tour to places like the Veterans Memorial Civic Center has been everything he could have imagined.
“It’s pretty wonderful,” the singer and songwriter said. “I supported his music behind the scenes for almost three years, promoting the publishing and making sure that it is heard on film and TV, but as a musician, growing up and performing with a lot of my heroes like Ray Charles, Aretha and BB King was just a different type of music. As much as I loved his music I felt like it was better to just promote it and that there was more integrity than just trying to capitalize on his music and name.”
But Croce eventually saw how performing Jim’s music could add to his legacy.
“Something happened and I just felt this real connection to it,” he said. “I felt like it was from being able to share the legacy of his music and mine. All of this American music is not just fun, but it’s special and I feel privileged to be able to share it so I think it’s an organic thing that came about very naturally.”
And everyone who attends his show at 7:30 p.m. Thursday night will be able to experience that firsthand when he comes to the Civic Center.
“If they’re going to spend the money to come and they haven’t heard either of our music, I would encourage them to go online and listen for starters to get a better idea of what they will hear,” Croce said. “But I think, that being said, it’s a pretty energetic show with a wonderful band and it’s just a lot of fun. I get to tell stories and there are really funny parts of the show as well as emotional parts and I think there’s a little bit of nostalgia to it.”
Croce said that even though he plays from a list of songs, he likes to tailor the performance to the crowd.
“Performance is kind of a natural occurrence and I like to be able to deviate from anything and also ask the audience for songs they want to hear that maybe I haven’t performed yet or even planned on performing and that way they can hear what they wanted to,” he said. “I get all kinds of interesting requests and just being able to have that experience of performing for an audience in the sense that we all become part of one thing together, that’s something I love.”
And other than maybe a t-shirt, that is in line with what Croce would want the audience to take away from the show.
“Hopefully, they forget about anything that was on their mind or heavy in their life for an hour and a half and that’s what they remember about it,” he said. “Because my job is to entertain and part of that is to take you into a different place for a few minutes and try to create a different environment. And, again, it’s a privilege.”
For anyone interested, they can start from the beginning of A.J. or his father’s music by looking them up on Youtube, Spotify or any other streaming site.
And they can keep up with everything Croce has going on with a big year of touring by visiting his website and Facebook page.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
