Consumer Guide Album

Jim Croce: Photographs and Memories [ABC, 1974]
Death hasn't changed this engaging, rather repetitious minor artist into a genius, but it's reminded us why he was (and is) engaging. His short-haul trucker persona (world-weary machismo with a heart of gold and a soul of beaten copper) and detached lowlife portraiture (he doesn't mess around that much with Jim himself) were a relief from post-hippie confessionalism, and his music was sweet and tough, never an easy combo to bring off. But like so many tough guys, he does get mawkish--only "Operator" adds insight as well as terse melody to our romantic mythology--and though his four albums do include a few good songs that didn't make it onto this fourteen-track compilation, they're enough like those that did that you can live without them. B+