25th Anniversary of September 20th, 1973

New Video

  Click on thumbnail  a visit to Maury's grave

Maury Muehleisen's parents had arranged for a Memorial  Mass to be said at St James Church in Pennington, New Jersey, at 8 A.M. Sunday, September 20th, 1998. Tom and Debbie Brun from Rhode Island, who had attended the Gathering, got up early and joined some of Maury's family for the Mass, followed by breakfast at a local restaurant.  The Bruns then visited Mary and her husband Ray, at their home.  Tom played his rendition of "Salon and Saloon" on their piano....a nice tribute to Maury on this anniversary.

Early in the afternoon, several of the Gathering attendees made the trip to Trenton, New Jersey, to spend some time with the Muehleisen family at Maury's gravesite in St Mary's cemetery.  After meeting Maury's parents and most of his siblings, we listened to a tape of some of Maury's "Gingerbreadd" songs and paid our respects for this gifted young man - a life cut short while helping his close friend, Jim Croce.

Parting from the cemetery, a few of us travelled to the North Jersey studio of Tommy West, Jim Croce's best friend and producer.  He welcomed his guests and gave a tour of the studio, sharing stories of times spent with Jim and Maury.

New Videos

  Click on thumbnail  Tommy West studio tour, part one

  Click on thumbnail  Tommy West studio tour, part two

  Click on thumbnail  Tommy explains the "birth" of that famous "Leroy Brown" intro

  Click on thumbnail  Tommy breaks out the guitars used by Jim & Maury on those famous hits

After visiting Maury's grave, a few of us headed off for an arranged meeting with Tommy West, and a tour of his studio.  Again, this was an event we were all looking forward to so much, our chance to meet the man behind all those Jim Croce hits.

Upon arrival, our host gave us a warm greeting and invited us to join him for lunch, and then we went on for a brief tour of his studio.  Tommy's studio, called "Somewhere in New Jersey" is a 150 year old barn which has been converted into a 5,000 sq ft recording studio.  Tommy explained that he and his wife, Ann had been living there since 1975.  He had met Ann in early 1974, and Tommy said "I always felt that when God took Jim away, he replaced him with my family".  The barn is of Swiss design, and German built, and was originally for keeping horses.  He had just finished a project with Anne Murray, had to do a "voice-over" for a radio project, and couldn't find a studio close to where they were living.  Tommy says he was put in touch with Andy Wasserman, from Hacketstown, who had built a studio in his house.  Tommy went to see Andy, who had "all this recording equipment in his living room".  They decided to move Andy's equipment into the barn and set up a control room on the ground floor where they started recording straight away.  After a couple of years, Tommy found that Andy was very busy with other projects and that he needed another set up for himself.  He began the conversion of the second floor studio, as he thought the acoustics would be so good there.  He had insulation added to the walls, floor and roof, creating a kind of "floating floor".  The end result provided an ideal environment, of which Tommy said "It's really hard to make acoustic instruments sound bad here.  I've had string quartets up here, all kinds of guitars and vocals, and it works".  Downstairs, Tommy built additional overdub rooms.  Tommy then showed us his control room that he added to the second floor.  He said "I used a board something like this at Soundstage in Nashville.  I love the EQ's on this console.  They're very musical and sweet."  

It was about that time that Tom Orecchio had to drive Ron Gletherow to the airport, as he had a plane to catch back to London.  Unfortunately for them, they missed what was to follow for the rest of us.  Tommy broke out the guitars that Jim and Maury used on all the albums.  There was a Gibson Dove, beautifully refinished by Phil Petillo, a beautiful nylon string guitar that Maury used on "I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song", and another steel string guitar used on "I Got A Name", all built by Petillo.  "Petillo was a genius" Tommy said. Finally, Tommy played some piano for us, and we were treated to  a great story of how the piano opening to "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown" came to be. 

Tommy had been the perfect host, and provided a fitting end to what had been a perfect weekend. We had met some of Jim's closest friends over the past three days, and felt we had learned so much more, not only about Jim Croce, the musical phenomenon, but also Jim Croce, the man.