JIM CROCE : THE WAY WE USED TO BE - THE ANTHOLOGY

 

Disc One (62:56)

  1. You Don't Mess Around With Jim
  2. Tomorrow's Gonna Be a Brighter Day
  3. New York's Not My Home
  4. Hard Time Losin' Man
  5. Photographs and Memories
  6. Walkin' Back to Georgia
  7. Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)
  8. Time in a Bottle
  9. Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy)
  10. Box, No. 10
  11. A Long Time Ago
  12. Hey Tomorrow
  13. One Less Set of Footsteps
  14. Roller Derby Queen
  15. Dreamin' Again
  16. Careful Man
  17. Alabama Rain
  18. A Good Time Man Like Me Ain't Got No Business (Singin' the Blues)
  19. Next Time, This Time
  20. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
  21. These Dreams
  22. Speedball Tucker
  23. It Doesn't Have to Be That Way

Disc Two (77:50)

  1. I Got a Name
  2. Lover's Cross
  3. Five Short Mintues
  4. Age
  5. Workin' at the Car Wash Blues
  6. I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song
  7. Salon and Saloon
  8. Thursday
  9. Top Hat Bar and Grill
  10. recently
  11. The Hard Way Every Time
  12. Circle of Style
  13. Carnival of Pride
  14. Wear Out the Turnpike
  15. Can't Wait
  16. The Migrant Worker
  17. Railroad Song
  18. And I Remember Her
  19. More Than That Tomorrow
  20. Cotton Mouth River
  21. Child of Midnight
  22. The Way We Used to Be
  23. Maybe Tomorrow
  24. Stone Walls
  25. Country Girl
  26. Which Way Are You Goin'?
  27. Mississippi Lady
  28. Chain Gang Medley: Chain Gang/He Will Break Your Heart (He Don't Don't Love You)/Searchin'
  29. Ol' Man River

Label : Sanctuary Records

Release Year : 2004

Review (AllMusic) : This three-CD, 68-track compilation doesn't have everything Jim Croce did, missing some of the obscure 1960s recordings he made (some with his wife Ingrid Croce). It does, however, include everything that most fans of his would be most keen to acquire, most notably the entirety of his 1972-73 albums You Don't Mess Around With Jim, Life and Times, and I Got a Name, which together encompass all of his most familiar material. Alongside those three albums, it has everything from Live: The Final Tour; some of the posthumous compilation The Faces I've Been; and ten folky songs from 1969 demos for a television show project (six done as a duo with Ingrid), some of which have surfaced on other collections. It stalks an awkward middle ground: it's not a box set with every damned last thing, and it's got too much stuff even for some dedicated Croce enthusiasts, who might find the two-CD 50th Anniversary Collection a little more manageable. For listeners who want everything from his brief hitmaking period and some extras, though, it's well-packaged with thorough liner notes. The first-half of the program (presenting his three proper solo albums in order), though, is certainly more consistent than the rest of the anthology, which is peripheral in comparison, either because the material's weaker and/or the instrumentation is skeletal folk (on the 1969 demos and Live: The Final Tour).