Jim Croce’s music career lasted less than a decade, but his impact can still be felt, and heard, today. The singer-songwriter’s music is still being consumed to this day, and this week, one of his releases reaches a new high point on a Billboard chart.
On Billboard’s Americana/Folk Albums chart, Croce returns with his Greatest compilation. The title appears on the ranking of the most-consumed folk and Americana albums in the country for only the second time ever.
Greatest debuted on the Americana/Folk Albums chart only last month. In January 2023, it arrived on the genre-specific tally at No. 25–in last place. Now, it’s topped that performance…but only slightly.
This week, Greatest reappears on the Americana/Folk Albums chart at No. 24. That’s just one rung higher than its original starting point, but it’s notable nonetheless. Greatest is more than 10 years old–and Croce’s music was created decades ago–so the fact that it’s still climbing is impressive.
Greatest is one of only three titles from Croce to make it to the Americana/Folk Albums chart. He debuted on the tally back in 2013, with The Lost Recordings. That title climbed to its best showing of No. 3 a year after it first arrived on the list. It remains his highest-charting project.
Croce has also sent one other collection to the Americana/Folk Albums chart. Photographs & Memories: His Greatest Hits, released one year after his death, has thus far peaked at No. 7 on the tally. While it might not be his highest-rising title, it has spent more time on the ranking than his other two wins. So far, the compilation has racked up an impressive 161 turns somewhere on the chart.
The folk singer-songwriter was killed in a plane crash in September 1973. By that point, he’d already charted a pair of top 10 albums on the all-genre Billboard 200, including a No. 1. His first posthumous release, I Got A Name, arrived just months after his passing, and it peaked in the runner-up rung on the important tally. His several successful greatest hits compilation are filled with successful singles like “Time in a Bottle,” “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song,” “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”
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