Editing Jim Croce (section)

== Tragic Death ==

Jim Croce died on September 20, 1973, when the charter plane carrying him and his band crashed on takeoff from Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana. He was 30 years old, at the peak of a commercial success that had required a decade of struggle to achieve. The crash killed everyone aboard, including guitarist Maury Muehleisen, whose partnership with Croce had been essential to the sound of his successful recordings.<ref name="richmond"/>

The timing of his death—just as his career had achieved the success he had worked toward—made his loss particularly poignant. Songs recorded before his death continued releasing afterward, their success demonstrating the audience connection that he had built in barely more than a year of commercial visibility. "Time in a Bottle" and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" both reached the charts posthumously, their success bittersweet evidence of the career that might have been.<ref name="ingram"/>