Song of the Day 9/20: Jim Croce, “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)”

Nobody called it the Day the Music Died, but 50 years ago today Philadelphia-born singer-songwriter Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash in Natchitoches, La., cutting short his career just as it was peaking. He was 30 years old.

Croce started out in the mid-’60s, performing with his wife as a folk duo, but he wasn’t successful enough to quit a variety of day jobs until 1970, when he hooked up with another singer-songwriter, guitarist Maury Muehleisen. At first Croce backed Muehleisen, but eventually they switched roles, and their act soon took off.

It helped that this was the dawn of the singer-songwriter boom, but Croce didn’t fit the Southern California template. He could write the emotional ballads the genre specialized in, but he got noticed thanks to what he called his “character songs,” starting with “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,” the title song of his 1972 LP. Before the year was out he had two more Top 40 hits, including “Operator.” Then he hit No. 1 with “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” from his second ABC Records album, leading to some network TV appearances, including a hosting gig of the concert show “Midnight Special.”

He finished recording his next LP, “I Got a Name,” a week before the plane crash, which also killed five others, including the pilot and Muehleisen, who was only 24. In the aftermath he scored another No. 1 hit, “Time in a Bottle,” a song from “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” that gained poignancy in the wake of his tragic death. Various record companies continued to release live and compilation albums well into this century.

“Operator” topped out at No. 17, but I think it’s his best song because it combined his storytelling ability with his tender side. Croce said he wrote it based on his experience in Army basic training, where he saw GIs line up to use the pay phone, many of them to talk to girlfriends who had sent them Dear John letters.

For this “Midnight Special” performance, Croce and Muehleisen were joined by their producer, Tommy West, whose piano and second harmony add another dimension to the song.