When I heard that A.J. Croce was appearing at Regattabar last week, I knew I needed to attend his show.

A.J. Croce

Yes, he is the son of Jim Croce who was one of the singer-songwriters I loved in my teens (and who died tragically in a plane crash at the age of 30). A.J., however, has a style that I find very different from his father’s pop/folk-rock style.

A.J.

A.J. is currently touring in support of his new release, ‘Twelve Tales’. This album has a number of different producers with each one producing one or two songs.

A.J.

As he introduced each song from the new release, he told us a bit of the story with each producer as well as any collaborators he had on the song. I found this quite interesting because I could hear the stylistic differences among the various producers. One song was co-written with Leon Russell; I like to think that, had I not heard the back story, I would have recognized Leon’s touch in that song.

A.J.

I have a few recordings by A.J. and they are hard to classify. There’s mostly jazz, swing, New Orleans funk, and blues, with some rock thrown in for good measure. Whatever the style, the songs are quite good. On this night, A.J. performed solo but his new recording does have musicians accompanying him.

A.J.

He played one song of his father’s, but not one of his best-known songs. He also played ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ by Sir Paul McCartney which I thought was fabulous!

A.J.

The audience was pitifully small, a fact not lost on A.J. I imagine that it’s disheartening to play to a small crowd; even though he made some sardonic remarks about that, he still played as if he were playing to a full house.

A.J.

He took requests from the audience, which included A.J.’s wife who was the only person to make requests.

I hope A.J. will return to Boston and that the next show will be much better attended. He is worth seeing.

A.J.

A.J.

A.J.