Jim Croce - Which Way Are You Goin' - Non-Album Tracks (1970-1973)

Jim Croce became a big star in 1972 seemingly out of nowhere, with a hit "debut" album and a couple of hit singles. However, he spent years toiling in obscurity as a folk musician and songwriter before his success. Unfortunately, his time in the spotlight was short, because he died in a plane crash in 1973. This album gathers up all his stray tracks from 1970 until the end of his career to 1973. I will have more to post of his music before 1970, but that's for another time.

Croce put out an obscure album in 1969 that was performed as a duet with his wife Ingrid Croce. Then he didn't release any new music until the hit 1972 album mentioned above, "You Don't Mess Around with Jim." It turns out he had a bunch of songs that he wrote and recorded in 1970 and 1971 that didn't get released at the time. Those comprise the first eight songs. I think all of them are originals, and all of them were only released posthumously. 

The remainder of the songs are cover versions that he did in his years of fame, 1972 and 1973. Two of those, "Chain Gang Medley" and "Ol' Man River" were the A- and B-sides of a 1972 single. The rest were performed in concert. I did my best to strip those of audience noise to make them sound like the other studio tracks. Luckily, the sound quality is so high on these that I think they come fairly close to sounding as good, even though a couple of them are from bootlegs.

Note that if you're easily offended, the song "Ball of Kerrymuir" probably is not for you. This seems to be a traditional Irish song that Croce played in concert for laughs. The lyrics are wild and X-rated, with each verse describing an outrageous sex act. I didn't include the long introduction he always gave to explain this strange song, but you can hear that on his official live album "The Final Tour." This version is longer and has some extra verses.

The songs are in rough chronological order by the year they were recorded. But I put "Ol' Man River" at the end even though it's from 1972 instead of 1973 since I find it a fitting final song.

This album is 40 minutes long. I wouldn't say it's as good as the three hit albums from 1972 and 1973 that he's best known for, but if you like those you should like this, since it's very much in the same vein.

01 [And] I Remember Her (Jim Croce)
02 Cotton Mouth River (Jim Croce)
03 More than That Tomorrow (Jim Croce)
04 The Migrant Worker (Jim Croce)
05 Stone Walls (Jim Croce)
06 King's Song (Jim Croce)
07 Mississippi Lady (Jim Croce)
08 Which Way Are You Goin' (Jim Croce)
09 Chain Gang Medley [Chain Gang - He Don't Love You - Searchin' - Chain Gang] (Jim Croce)
10 Framed (Jim Croce)
11 He's Got a Way with Women (Jim Croce)
12 Ball of Kerrymuir [Edit] (Jim Croce)
13 Shopping for Clothes (Jim Croce)
14 Ol' Man River (Jim Croce)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15102048/JimCr_1970-1973_WhichWyAreYouGoin_atse.zip.html

PJ of his "Albums I Wish Existed" blog originally did the album cover. But then I realized I had to redo it after I discovered the exact version of the song I wanted as the title song was in fact on Croce's "Americana" album already. So I redid it with a new title. I'm not sure where or when the photo is from. I added the same record company logo that was on his 1972 and 1973 albums.