The music business works in mysterious ways. Not long after posting news that recent remixes of Jim Croce's classic solo albums were getting repackaged into a CD set, The Second Disc was approached with the opportunity to talk to A.J. Croce, the son of the late singer/songwriter, ahead of a tour he's mounting.

Adrian James Croce was eight days shy of turning two when a plane crash claimed the life of his father, then just 30 years old. He has since gone into music himself: hardly a clone of Jim - there's a different kind of grit and soul behind his vocal delivery - but someone whose name and talent have opened the door to great collaborations. (His 1993 self-titled debut was produced by T-Bone Burnett; this year's Heart of the Eternal was helmed by Shooter Jennings, Waylon's son.) Gradually, he's worked Jim's music into his narrative: 2017's Just Like Medicine featured "Name of the Game," an unrecorded song of his father's, and a year later he recorded "I Got a Name" for a Goodyear commercial starring another well-loved son who lost a father to tragedy, race car driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. In 2021, A.J. embarked on the first dates of Croce Plays Croce, a series of tour dates featuring his takes on the catalogue. A new leg kicks off today, September 17, at the Avalon Theatre in Colorado, playing 34 cities through November. (He's set to play the Town Hall in New York City, closest to Second Disc HQ, on October 24.)

In a thoughtful conversation, Croce, now 53, discussed the thrills and challenges of tackling a songbook that comes with its share of expectations and anticipations and some unique insights on grief - and even shines a light on the future of his father's sterling song catalogue. It has been edited for clarity.

Having heard both your interpretations of your father's work and your own music, I love that Croce Plays Croce is a melding of two worlds. It is largely your sound and his music - there are similarities and deviations - but it all works together. When you put these sets together, what is your mission statement, so to speak?

The main thing is, this is a multi-generational story. Not just between my father and I, but for all the fans out there that shared the music with their kids; parents and grandparents sharing it. I see three generations out there in the audience, and that's one of the most beautiful things. After as many albums as my father has sold over 50 years, people know the songs. People come to hear those songs. And it might be the greatest hits; we're gonna play that stuff. But I couldn't do this as a cover band. I couldn't treat this as "A Night of Jim Croce." It's a tribute to his legacy, and I'm part of that legacy. And the other part of that legacy is the music that really inspired him and myself to be the artists that we are, because no one creates in a vacuum. There are a myriad of influences - social and cultural and obviously musical - that inspire us and affect us. I think it's really important to add that element to the show.

Also, I've had a much longer career, and I've performed in all different genres; this allows the show to be fluid and relevant and personal. The stories behind his songs are sometimes just as important as the stories of the songs that I might play by another artist, because they're all related. People come because of the nostalgia, and I think, once they're there, what happens, and is really unique - and I couldn't quite explain it in the few years that I've done this show - I've seen this again and again: there is this aspect of nostalgia which becomes three-dimensional - this thing that was a memory becomes present. When that happens, unlike an artist playing their old songs, there's something really beautiful and sincere and emotional that people feel. Knowing that I'm doing this from the most sincere place - because I love the music, because I loved what he did - but I also am an artist in my own right, and I think people really get a sense of that within a couple songs.

And we're always gonna play the hits, because I know that's what people want, but my set lists are really songless. They're more shaped around the audience and what I feel like they are grooving on. Some people think, oh, it's gonna be a night of ballads. Not at all. It's a really energetic show. It's such an amazing band that I'm bringing with me: the singers are great, the players are so diverse. I think that my history with artists that I've toured with and played with plays a role in that. It gives it a certain depth and flavor. There's nothing homogenous about it. It took a long time to get here, and I didn't want to waste anyone's time, now that I'm here.

I love your voice, and what it does to your dad's songs while making them your own. What are the challenges for you as a musician of how to sing these songs?

That's a really good question, and it's not easy to answer, because each song is unique. There are similarities in our voice. I have a little bit more of a rasp in my voice, and certainly the closer I am to the mic, the raspier it sounds, so finding that balance and trying to smooth out my voice in songs like "Operator" or "Time in a Bottle," some of the ballads...I'm conscious of trying to use the microphone to my advantage. For any artist, regardless of who they are, a recording is just that. It's a recording of a moment, one particular take of one song. Maybe it's 10 takes of one song put together, but it's a particular moment in time. But the next take, say, before you had multitracking, was going to be completely different. And performing in concert is just like that.

I think so many artists now, are using backing tracks because they're afraid of the music not sounding exactly like the record. I don't want the record to be the definitive version of a song. Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead played them different every night. That was kind of what people loved about it, and I hope that's what they get in my interpretation of these things. They're living, breathing pieces of art. If I were to play it the same every night...I couldn't do it. I'd be bored stiff. I don't play anything the same way twice. Aside from the emotional and family connections and all of that, just as a player, I want to be inspired by the music to put myself in that place. It's acting, to a certain degree. What do the words mean to you tonight versus last night? And it changes night to night. Music is such a mood-oriented art. What you're feeling and thinking and what's happening in your life is different; sometimes you want to hear Motorhead, and sometimes you want to hear Chopin.

I play for the audience, and they may not have seen last night's show, It probably may have been posted somewhere, but the reality is that I don't have an audience like The Dead or Phish that are coming to every show. So we're thoughtful about certain songs needing to stay a little closer to the original, just because they're kind of somehow sacred in a way. There are certain songs that are like that - but I can't be too precious.

This music stands for a lot of things to people. One thing I want to touch on that I don't think a lot of people have talked about, - and tell me if you think I'm misguided on this or not - I'm intrigued by what I see as a connection between your father's music and labor. He was a working musician; he really put a lot of time in, and was doing a lot of things to keep himself afloat before he was a hitmaker.

His old manager once told me that when my dad was performing on The Dick Cavett Show, John Lennon and Harry Nilsson showed up to watch, and Lennon said something about my dad being the real working-class hero. To some degree, that may be true. But he was educated: he had two master's degrees in language and psychology. He had been a teacher, a radio DJ, he sold airtime for stations, he had been a truck driver...he had a lot of different jobs. He was the son of an immigrant, and he appreciated the American culture. Growing up in South Philly in the 1950s, you know, he was part of the Beat generation. He was a little older than some of his peers that were having albums at the same time. He was coming from it in maybe a slightly different way: music never really seemed like it was attainable as a career, until it was.

And beyond the universality of "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song," or the fun of "You Don't Mess Around with Jim," I think there's something lurking sort of beyond the most familiar songs.

Well, he made heroes out of everyday people. There's a big influence you can hear from Lieber and Stoller - they wrote humorous characters. "You Don't Mess Around with Jim" is like a Jimmy Reed song. "Rapid Roy" is like a Chuck Berry song with more chords. Growing up with all that rock and roll and R&B and opera and polka and everything that was playing on South Street in the 1950s, it was a melting pot. And then you have this other facet of him as a writer, where his early folk influences, come out as well. Coming up playing folk music in college, he kind of fine-tuned it. It was no longer Woody Guthrie, or The Weavers, or Pete Seeger, or any of that influencing as much as a style of communication.

And the two parts create this beautiful polyphony, regardless of whether you're listening to the other facets of it. There were two sides, really. One was more thoughtful, a way for him to communicate that he was not comfortable communicating outside of being on stage; and then there's the humorous side of character songs, a lot more like he was, outwardly, to a lot of people. Somehow how they resonate. We all know someone that has these traits.

You've worked with a lot of great artists. Are there any you'd still like to collaborate with, or things you'd like to do? And how did you stay grounded working with some heavy hitters so early in your career?

Oh, there's a lot. I would love to write music for hip-hop. I'd love to write music for film. I would love to work with Dave Cobb. There's a lot of contemporary artists that I think are really wonderful, and I'd love to collaborate with [them] in a certain way. As far as staying grounded...I never felt famous, and I never was attracted to celebrity. I saw some of the downsides of it growing up.

I guess from the outside, it's hard to really tell. I don't read about myself, and I think that makes a big difference. T-Bone actually told me on the first record - he said, "There'll be a lot of people writing all kinds of things about this, and you'll do a ton of interviews, but I recommend that you don't read about yourself." And I think that was really good advice. Just talking to you, there's not really a reason for me to re-listen to this. We're talking to each other, and I know who I am. Better that you know who I am.

Which is why we're having this conversation!

There's a part of it that just is kind of logical. The other thing is, I didn't grow up in L.A. or New York. I grew up in San Diego, and driving back and forth to do gigs and play sessions, it was a million miles away. It was not an entertainment town; one of the hardest audiences to captivate I've ever played for. It made me a much better performer. The first time I played New York City, I was with Taj Mahal, and I could not believe what I was feeling. I was so scared - but everyone was listening. I thought, "Oh, I could get used to this!" Not that people don't love music in San Diego; it's just that concerts are social. People are busy during the day, a lot of people work at home, a lot of people have outdoor lifestyles, and they get to a place, and they're socializing. And so, there could be a lot more talking in a theater than there would be at most venues.

Growing up there, I didn't always feel like I could talk about what I was doing. It felt like bragging. Coming back from a tour with B.B. King, or Ray Charles, or Aretha, having a crazy experience with James Brown, and then it's like I couldn't talk about it. There was no one...I wish, in some ways, at that age, I had other people that were doing what I did, but there just weren't.

Your latest record, Heart of the Eternal, was produced by Shooter Jennings. Do you find it easy to connect to people with well-known parents, musicians or otherwise?

Not always. I think everyone has a different take on it. To me, I'm fascinated with the psychology of fame and renown. But Shooter and I had a lot in common for different reasons, too. We both really had to work to do it, you know? It wasn't like some great inheritance. We had to work to make a living, and I think we had that in common. And so, we had, in a way, kind of lived in the same world for a while.

I had played on a session for his dad, and met Shooter around 1996. We had kind of lost touch, he moved to L.A., and I moved to Nashville, and so, region-wise, we were a little far apart. But it was just one of those things where we really hit it off. We had a lot of similar experiences, good and bad. And he's just a good person. Humble, and wonderful to work with. Creative.

Beyond your father, you have an unfortunately unique experience with grief. [As a child, Croce was temporarily blind as a result of physical abuse from a family acquaintance; Croce's wife, the mother to his two children, died suddenly in 2018.] I feel like there's a lot of grieving happening around the world. How do you process it? Do people ever ask you, or would you be so bold as to offer, your insight?

Of course! I don't know that what I'm gonna say is gonna help anyone, besides how it helped me. For most of my life, until a certain point, when something bad happened, it was like, "Okay, that happened. Now I've got to pick up and move forward." You've got to keep your sense of humor; you've got to remember that it's not the end of the world - unless it is the end of the world.

That was how I did it, and I don't think that was really healthy. Because of all of the different experiences - my loss of sight, my house burning down, my dad, all of the crazy shit that happened to me as a kid - it was easier to talk about it, and be like, "Yeah, that happened," and kind of laugh about it. But I hadn't really dealt with it, and after my wife died about seven years ago, I was in a different place, and I really needed to deal with it. It was cumulative: it wasn't just that she died, it was that all of these things had kind of built up.

So I tried to basically numb myself the best that I could, and found that that was not healthy. And in the process, I found a wonderful group of people, and a center in Nashville that deals with trauma. That was incredibly helpful to me. In all the years of going to therapy, I had never done group therapy, and I'd never really looked at [things] from as many angles as I did in that short period of time.

What I took away from it is that you need to forgive yourself for certain things. How you react and how you hold onto things is sometimes unhealthy. Forgiving yourself allows you to move to the next place. Life is a struggle by nature, and it doesn't matter who you are. By recognizing that, and dealing with that stuff, and really coming to a place where I felt that I was, for the first time in my life, deserving of love and happiness and respect, it allowed me to move to a new place in my life. I'm in love, and I'm happy, and I'm in a healthy relationship, and there's all of these things that are side effects of facing your demons.

When and how did the process of archival material fit into your life? At what point was there a discussion, if you'd like to be involved with it?

Very early on. I had a good understanding, from my early teens, on how statements worked, and so I was really engaged in publishing from an early age. As a songwriter and performer, I made sure that my own music was taken care of, and I had about 10 years of experience with my own music, from about 18 to 28 with, my own publishing company. At that point, the earlier recordings of my father's were reverting; my father died broke, without a will or anything like that, so there was no expectation of great fame or fortune.

For me, it was a labor of love - always something I loved to do, because behind the scenes, I was able to be involved, and be creative, and find ways to share his musical legacy. [It] didn't really didn't feel comfortable to me, being out front and performing at that time. I needed to have a bit of my own identity before I dove into playing this. Of course. It took me 30 years of touring before I felt comfortable playing his stuff. It's kind of an organic, natural process.

Once we had a partnership with BMG, it really changed a lot of things. The publishing world, the music world, the business side of things has changed so much; some of it's really wonderful, and some of it is not, from a writer's perspective. Making sure that I'm aware of the business side of things has always been a necessity, even though I'd rather be performing and writing songs and being creative all day, I need to make sure that that other side of things is taken care of; [with BMG], everything was under the same roof for the first time. From a music business point of view, that's a dream, because previously it would take days, sometimes a week or two before you could get all the parties involved to agree on a license or something like that.

What more, if anything, can fans expect from your father's archive?

Because my father really didn't have very many rights, he didn't have a great record deal, and he didn't really own anything of his own. No one did back then. Over the years, as his catalog has been sold multiple times, I have very little say in what's gone on. In a couple years, that'll change. We'll be able to release everything on Croce Music Group and be able to dig through the archives and share a bunch of old stuff, great demos, and amazing live performances, and just put a whole big retrospective together. But I'm kind of pausing on it a little bit, just because we have limited material. His career lasted 18 months, and while he was around for 10 years before, playing music, it was still kind of an overnight success.

A few years ago, you described the memory of your father's embrace. Do you feel that when you play his songs or yours, that he - and interpret this however you like - is with you?

Sometimes. The way that I feel it the most, going back to another question that you asked earlier, is when I interpret his songs. Obviously, I'm playing the same chords. I'm singing mostly the same melody as him. I might add a couple little things here and there. But what I'm doing within that is different. In those moments, on the Croce Plays Croce tour, I really feel a connection, because I think it would have made him happy to see me do what I do.