Concert Review: A.J. Croce at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall 2/10/24

By Louise Hoffman Broach
TROY — A.J. Croce said if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s that you can’t fight the acoustics in a 149-year-old theater.

“The room will win every time,” he said after his sold-out show Saturday at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. Still, he managed to beautifully tame the venue for two hours with “Croce Plays Croce” in a space that he said was built “pre-microphone and not designed for electric guitars, electric bass or drum kits.”

The son of the legendary Jim Croce, A.J. joyously and jubilantly performed many of his father’s songs as well as some of his own and those by legends ranging from Sam Cooke (“Nothing Can Change the Love I Have for You”) to Billy Preston (“Nothin’ from Nothin’”). He later said it seemed to him an almost subdued effort to appease the room. But if the audience’s enthusiasm for the music was any indication, they never knew it.

From the opening number, “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” to the encore “Time in a Bottle,” Croce held the crowd rapt with his rollicking versions of “Roller Derby Queen,” “Car Wash Blues,” stories about his father (who died in a plane crash in 1973, shortly before A.J.’s second birthday) and his name-dropping mentions of the iconic people who influenced him in the business. They included Ray Charles and B.B. King (both of whom he eventually toured with), Alan Toussaint, and a litany of artists going back to the early days of jazz and recorded sound in general.

With an almost constant smile and good-humored talk (A.J. Croce, besides being a virtuoso self-taught pianist, is a funny man), it was often more like a conversation than a performance when he peppered the music with anecdotes. And the audience clearly loved not only that but the cleverly orchestrated video that mixed images of his parents with vintage clips of everything from Charlie Chaplin to old-time switchboards and demolition derbies.

Perhaps one of the best numbers in a night of near-flawless music was “Judgment Day.” It combines Cuban sounds with lyrics from an old spiritual that A.J. Croce said he first heard on a 1925 recording by Skip Jones. The song, Croce said, is part of the time in memoriam folk process where each new version builds something onto a piece that could be hundreds of years old. His fingers dancing across the keyboard and his voice raised as if leading a worship service, it was a mambo-inspired spiritual that showed off Croce’s creative diversity.

At one point in the evening he opened the floor to requests, with people shouting out the titles of both his father’s songs and some of his own. He did most of them, and on “Lover’s Cross” his voice reflected the depth of his father’s, echoing that classic Croce sound they share.

His band members, all of whom are at least two decades older than Croce’s 52 years, are legendary in their own rights. They have impressive pedigrees: drummer Gary Mallaber (Van Morrison/Steve Miller Band); bassist/singer David Barard (Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt); and guitarist/violinist James Pennebaker (Delbert McClinton). They were accompanied by soulful background singers Jackie Wilson and Katrice Donaldson.

Croce said he and the band will go into the studio this spring to record a new album, which he teased with a rendition of “So Much Fun,” a song he wrote during the pandemic about discovering that he enjoyed his own company, sprinkled with a story about the silliness of learning to tap dance.