Old America Meets New in A.J. Croce's Songs : Pop music: Although he can't answer questions about his father, the late songwriter Jim Croce, he can talk enthusiastically about pre-rock figures such as Hoagy Carmichael.

Old America Meets New in A.J. Croce’s Songs : Pop music: Although he can’t answer questions about his father, the late songwriter Jim Croce, he can talk enthusiastically about pre-rock figures such as Hoagy Carmichael.

By STEVE HOCHMAN

Oct. 22, 1993 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The music of A.J. Croce, the son of the late singer-songwriter Jim Croce, is not, so to speak, his father’s Oldsmobile.

It’s more like his grandfather’s Stutz Bearcat.

Rather than deal in the solid, reliable, ‘70s-rooted genre his father was known for, the young Croce mines the stylish manners of such pre-rock figures as Hoagy Carmichael and Joe Turner, which makes him closer to Harry Connick Jr. than Jim Croce Jr.

“I get asked a lot of questions about my father and feel bad that I can’t answer them,” said Croce, 21, whose initials stand for Adrian James. “The truth is I didn’t know him and he plays only a small part in my influences, though I think he was a great songwriter.”

Croce was just 2 when his father, whose biggest hits included the wistful “Time in a Bottle” and the whimsical “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,” died in a small-plane crash while on tour in 1974. The boy was born near Philadelphia and raised in San Diego, where his family had moved just months before Jim’s death. He grew up in a musical environment around nightclubs owned by his mother, Ingrid, who had performed with Jim as a folk duo in the late ‘60s.

If he can’t answer questions about his father, Croce, who performs Monday at the Roxy, can talk enthusiastically about the likes of Carmichael, Jimmy Rushing and Ray Charles. Those are the singers and songwriters he began mimicking before he was even in his teens. Even his contemporary favorites--Elvis Costello, Dr. John, Tom Waits and Lyle Lovett among them--are people who share those influences.

“When I was a teen-ager I was turned off by contemporary pop,” Croce said over lunch at Cicada in West Hollywood. “The music that I play is what feels most natural to me.”

The blend of classic styles can be heard in his piano playing, singing and songwriting as featured on his recent debut album, “A.J. Croce,” which was co-produced by John Simon (the Band) and T Bone Burnett (Los Lobos), with musical support from drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist Robben Ford and keyboardist Benmont Tench, among others.

He began performing in his mother’s clubs and got his first real professional gig playing a bar mitzvah when he was 13.

“I was doing Memphis Slim and Ray Charles songs,” he said. “I guess that’s why I got the job, like I was a sideshow act or something.”

Gradually he was able to get shows at other clubs, to the point that it overshadowed his schooling.

“I dropped out of high school as a senior because besides not learning anything I was playing six nights a week until 2 a.m.,” he said. “I was making a living doing that, so I quit school.”

Last year he was seen at his mother’s club in San Diego, Croce’s Top Hat Bar and Grille, by Ron Goldstein, president of the L.A.-based Private Music record company. Goldstein signed Croce and hooked him up with a manager and a booking agent. Now with the arrival of the album he’s appeared twice on “The Tonight Show,” and, at the suggestion of Keltner, wrote the lyrics and sang a Levi’s jeans radio commercial that’s currently airing.

He accepts the fact that part of his appeal is the novelty of a young man--especially the son of a famous performer--reviving old styles. But he rejects the notion that what he’s doing is mere nostalgia, preferring to see it as an extension of a living tradition.

“I’ve had women who are in their 70s hear me play and tell me how they used to ditch school to see Hoagy Carmichael at the Paramount in New York,” he said. “But I don’t think of the music as nostalgic. It’s just American music. These songs are a map of America.”