MUSIC Wife, son of Jim Croce reissue raw first album

'Facets' is packaged with a DVD, a photo collection and other bonus material.
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Jim Croce's first album was supposed to end his musical career before it ever got started.
In 1966, the young folk artist was planning to marry his sweetheart, Ingrid. As the oldest son of a large Italian immigrant family in the Philadelphia area, Croce was expected to use his college education for a respectable, financially stable line of work.
His parents gave Croce $500 as a wedding gift, with one stipulation: It must be used to record an album. Croce's parents figured the task would be so difficult that he would give up on music. But the plan backfired -- 500 copies of the album quickly sold out among fans who heard Croce play at local bars, and Croce then devoted himself to music.
Now, 31 years after Croce's death in a plane crash, Ingrid Croce and their son -- also a musician -- are re-releasing the album, "Facets," along with a DVD of his performances, an early session recorded at the family's kitchen table, and a collection of photos paired in a hardcover book with the lyrics to "Time in a Bottle" and family reminiscences.
The re-release, on the Shout Factory label, is made possible by the recent reversion of copyrights to Croce's beneficiaries, Ingrid and A.J. Croce.
Target audience
"Facets" is for the fan of Croce's later hits -- such as "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)" or "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" -- who "wants to understand where did it all come from," Ingrid Croce.
The album, a combination of songs by composers Croce admired and his own early work, is a remarkably unpolished recording by the 22-year-old musician and his buddies, who during a three-hour session at a Delaware studio laid down 11 tracks, almost all on the first take. The sound is raw: There's an echo to Croce's voice, breathing from the ensemble -- even street sounds because studio windows were left open because of the heat, Ingrid Croce says.