Have You Heard - Jim Croce Live

Rating:
Summary: Essential Part Of Croce Trilogy!
Review: This DVD is an excellent overview of the all too short career of Jim Croce! I have been a fan of Jim Croce from the time his first album was released in the early 70s! I have updated my Jim Croce collection to the digital technology of today, which I call The Essential Jim Croce Trilogy! The trilogy consists of 1)"Jim Croce: The 50th Anniversary Collection" 2 CD set released to commemorate what would have been Croce's 50th birthday and goes as far back as some of Jim and Ingrid's songs together! It's the most comprehensive collection of Jim's career. 2)"Jim Croce Home Recordings:Americana" the first CD in 30 years of previously unreleased recordings of Croce singing into a reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1967 at his kitchen table, released in late 2003! Every effort was made to bring these recordings into the digital age of CD and it is essential to complete any Croce collection! 3)The "Have You Heard Jim Croce Live" DVD! This DVD is a GEM! It is good to see Jim Croce performing live with his guitar, to see videos of his songs and footage of Jim, Ingrid and A.J. at home just being a family, released the same day as item two in late 2003 ! I highly recommend these three titles as the best way to update your Jim Croce collection! Jim Croce will live on through his music and now this DVD also! Thanks to everyone involved in these three projects!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent quality, worth the money-for all Croce fans!
Review: This has a good mix of videos on it ( leans a little more to the story songs), though it is probably limited some by what Ingrid could obtain after fighting for 30 years for rights to Jim's stuff. The price was very cheap and the quality was GREAT! The atmosphere of the songs is fantastic with Jim and Maury Muehleisen sitting and playing great acoustic guitar. It will make you feel like you are back in 1972 or 1973 for a while, and you'll forget that they both are gone, and when it's over you'll be glad that they still live through the music, and that you have a piece of it. It is so much better seeing it performed than just listening to the CDs. Don't miss this. It was much more than I expected, and unlike some inexpensive DVDs, this has some nice extras. If you are a Croce fan and like Maury's playing as much as me, check out www.maurymuehleisen.com/main.html run by Maury's sister Mary (a great person).

Rating:
Summary: This DVD is a Treasure
Review: Viewing this delicious DVD is kind of like Pornography for Singer/Songwriters. Someone obviously put a lot of thought and care into the song selection and presentation. Jim Croce was a fantastic, resourceful live performer. His accompanist, Maury Muehleisen, is the only back up band in evidence (known performances that include producers Cashman and West are noteworthy for their absence -- fueling speculation that there remains bad blood between them and Jim's widow, Ingrid Croce). Some of these performances don't include an audience; the lack of applause on these numbers lending them an eerie "from-beyond-the-grave" quality. The hits are all there -- even if "I'll Have to Say I Love You In a Song" is only a $1.98 video montage interlude. And there are some nice surprises: rarities such as "Hard Way Every Time" and "One Less Set of Footsteps" (a song that, on its original recording, featured Muehleisen administering a lead acoustic guitar performance that stands toe to toe with any electric guitar hit of the era). Croce was a raconteur of the first order and does not disappoint here, providing entertaining backstories for almost every live song. Croce died in 1973, so a lot of this was lifted from video. But one hardly notices -- partly because the digital remastering is superb and Croce is ... well, Jim Croce.