"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" | ||||
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![]() Side A of the original US single | ||||
Single by Jim Croce | ||||
from the album Life and Times | ||||
B-side | "A Good Time Man Like Me Ain't Got No Business (Singin' the Blues)" | |||
Released | March 20, 1973 | |||
Recorded | 1972 | |||
Genre | Boogie-woogie [1] | |||
Length | 3:02 | |||
Label | ABC Vertigo (international) | |||
Songwriter(s) | Jim Croce | |||
Producer(s) | Terry Cashman, Tommy West | |||
Jim Croce singles chronology | ||||
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Audio | ||||
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" on YouTube |
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is an uptempo, strophic story song written by American folk rock singer Jim Croce. Released as part of his 1973 album Life and Times , the song was a No. 1 hit for him, spending two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1973. Billboard ranked it as the No. 2 song for 1973. [2]
Croce was nominated for two 1973 Grammy Awards in the Pop Male Vocalist and Record of the Year categories for "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". [3] It was Croce's only number-one single before his death on September 20 of that year and his final single to be released during his lifetime.
The song's titular character is a 6-foot-4-inch (1.93 m) tall man from the South Side of Chicago whose size, attitude, and tendency to carry weapons have given him a reputation in which he is adored by women and feared by men. He is said to dress in fancy clothes and wear diamond rings, and to own a custom Lincoln Continental and a Cadillac Eldorado, implying he has a lot of money. He is also known to carry a .32 caliber handgun in his pocket and a razor in his shoe. One day in a bar he makes a pass at a pretty married woman named Doris, whose jealous husband engages Brown in a fight. Leroy loses badly, and is described as looking "like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone".
The story of a widely feared man being bested in a fight is similar to that of Croce's earlier song "You Don't Mess Around with Jim". [4]
According to Billboard , it is "filled with humorous lines and a catchy arrangement." [4] Cash Box described it as "a delightful new single in the same musical vein as his 'You Don't Mess Around with Jim' smash that started his career." [5] Record World called it "another story-song similar to the one that started it all for [Croce], 'You Don't Mess Around With Jim.'" [6]
Croce's inspiration for the song was a friend he met in his brief time in the US Army:
I met him at Fort Dix, New Jersey. We were in lineman (telephone) school together. He stayed there about a week, and one evening he turned around and said he was really fed up and tired. He went AWOL, and then came back at the end of the month to get his paycheck. They put handcuffs on him and took him away. Just to listen to him talk and see how 'bad' he was, I knew someday I was gonna write a song about him. [7]
He told a variation of this story on The Helen Reddy Show in July 1973:
This is a song about a guy I was in the army with... It was at Fort Dix, in New Jersey, that I met this guy. He was not made to climb the tree of knowledge, as they say, but he was strong, so nobody'd ever told him what to do, and after about a week down there he said "Later for this" and decided to go home. So he went AWOL—which means to take your own vacation—and he did. But he made the mistake of coming back at the end of the month to get his paycheck. I don't know if you've ever seen handcuffs put on anybody, but it was SNAP and that was the end of it for a good friend of mine, who I wrote this tune about, named Leroy Brown. [8]
Croce explained the chorus reference to Leroy Brown being "meaner than a junkyard dog":
Yeah, I spent about a year and a half driving those $29 cars, so I drove around a lot looking for a universal joint for a '57 Chevy panel truck or a transmission for a '51 Dodge. I got to know many junkyards well, and they all have those dogs in them. They all have either an axle tied around their necks or an old lawnmower to keep 'em at least slowed down a bit, so you have a decent chance of getting away from them. [7]
North American 7" Single (ABC-11359) [9]
UK 7" Single (Vertigo 6073 258)
International 7" Single (Vertigo 6073 256)
The recording session that produced the song was one of several for Croce which employed session drummer Gary Chester. [10]
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" entered the charts in April 1973 and peaked at number one on the American charts three months later. It was still on the charts on September 20 when Croce died in a plane crash in Natchitoches, Louisiana. It was the second #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart to include a curse word ("damn") in its lyrics, after the "Theme from Shaft".
| Year-end charts
All-time charts
| Certifications
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"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" | ||||
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![]() Side A of the US single | ||||
Single by Frank Sinatra | ||||
from the album Some Nice Things I've Missed | ||||
B-side | "I'm Gonna Make It All The Way" | |||
Released | March 1974 | |||
Recorded | 1973–1974 | |||
Genre | Traditional pop | |||
Length | 2:49 | |||
Label | Reprise | |||
Songwriter(s) | Jim Croce | |||
Producer(s) | Don Costa | |||
Frank Sinatra singles chronology | ||||
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Audio | ||||
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" on YouTube |
In 1974, the song was covered by legendary singer and actor Frank Sinatra on his 1974 studio album " Some Nice Things I've Missed ", mostly consisting of covers of popular songs at the time, his first album since his brief retirement in the early 1970s, the album's title being a reference to him catching up on songs that came out during his retirement, with Sinatra's version being the closing track on the album. Sinatra's version was released as a single on Reprise Records in March 1974 [22] and was a minor hit in the US, peaking at Number 83 on the Hot 100 that June. [23] As with most tracks on the album, Sinatra's version was produced and conducted by Don Costa. [24] Sinatra's version also reached Number 106 in the Cashbox charts and Number 31 on the US Adult Contemporary charts, the highest chart position for Sinatra's version. [25]
Chart (1974) | Peak position |
---|---|
US Billboard Hot 100 [26] | 83 |
US Cashbox | 106 |
US Adult Contemporary ( Billboard ) [27] | 31 |
"Bye Bye Leroy Brown" | ||||
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![]() | ||||
Single by Sylvie Vartan | ||||
Language | French | |||
B-side | "Bien sûr" | |||
Released | June 1974 | |||
Recorded | Early 1974 | |||
Genre | Pop | |||
Length | 3:12 | |||
Label | RCA | |||
Songwriter(s) | Jim Croce, Michel Mallory | |||
Sylvie Vartan singles chronology | ||||
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Audio | ||||
"Bye Bye Leroy Brown" (French TV, 1975) on YouTube |
In 1974, the song was adapted into French as "Bye Bye Leroy Brown" by Michel Mallory and was recorded by French pop singer Sylvie Vartan and was released as a non-album single on RCA Records in June 1974. [28] [29] Vartan's version peaked at peaked at Number 17 on the French Belgian charts on September 14, 1974. [30]
Chart (1974) | Peak position |
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Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia) [31] | 17 |
James Joseph Croce was an American folk and rock singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, he released five studio albums and numerous singles. During this period, Croce took a series of odd jobs to pay bills while he continued to write, record and perform concerts. After Croce formed a partnership with the songwriter and guitarist Maury Muehleisen in the early 1970s, his fortunes turned. Croce's breakthrough came in 1972, when his third album, You Don't Mess Around with Jim, produced three charting singles, including "Time in a Bottle", which reached No. 1 after Croce died. The follow-up album Life and Times included the song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", Croce's only No. 1 hit during his lifetime.
"Twist and Shout" is a 1961 song written by Phil Medley and Bert Berns. It was originally recorded by the Top Notes, but it did not become a hit in the record charts until it was reworked by the Isley Brothers in 1962. The song has been covered by several artists, including the Beatles, Salt-N-Pepa, The Astronauts and Chaka Demus & Pliers, who experienced chart success with their versions.
Life and Times is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, released in January 1973. The album contains the No. 1 Billboard chart hit "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". Croce was nominated for two 1973 Grammy awards in the "Pop Male Vocalist" and "Record of the Year" categories for the song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". It would be the last album to be released during Croce's lifetime.
I Got a Name is the fifth and final studio album and first posthumous release by American singer-songwriter, Jim Croce, released on December 1, 1973. It features the ballad "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song", which reached number 9 in the US singles chart, and the ballad "Salon and Saloon", the last song Croce recorded in his lifetime. The song, which is noted for its sparse piano-only vocal backing, was written by his guitarist and friend Maury Muehleisen and was included on the album as a gift to the writer.
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"Time in a Bottle" is a song by singer-songwriter Jim Croce. He wrote the lyrics after his wife Ingrid told him she was pregnant in December 1970. It appeared on Croce's 1972 ABC debut album You Don't Mess Around with Jim and was featured in the 1973 ABC made-for-television movie She Lives! After he was killed in a plane crash in September 1973, the song was aired frequently on radio, and demand for a single release built. The single of "Time in a Bottle" became Croce's second, and final track to reach number one in the United States.
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Jim Croce was an American singer-songwriter with five studio albums and 12 singles to his credit. His posthumously-released fifth studio album was completed just prior to his 1973 death, and seven singles were also posthumously issued, one of which was "Time in a Bottle" from a previous album You Don't Mess Around with Jim. His popularity continued long after his death with the release of numerous compilation albums and "new" material being portioned out sporadically over the years. Three live albums, as well as a live DVD, have also been published.
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"La Maritza" is a song by Sylvie Vartan from her 1968 album Sylvie Vartan. It was also released as an EP and as the second single off of said album.
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