Thank you for visiting the Banjo Jim pages.
If you'd like to add to it, send your memories of Jim,
poetry, song lyrics, or whatever you want to say to Ky Hote
Jim told me often that this was his favorite song.

Ave. X

Down on Gravesend and Ave. X
you were prowling the night up to your old tricks
taking gentlemen upstairs to your room
to play the game of love
King Louie the 14th st would send them down your way
handle the finances, the input and the outlay
and you'd keep them hopping till they lost their fizz
then you'd say get walkin kid, go back to the mountain
what you doing buying sex down on gravesend
and ave x

you were never bothered by the rain on your head
just for such emergencies you wore a hat neon red
with your long yellow boots on and your long yellow hair
you could stop any boy a promise of quick joy
an hour of pleasure, deductable as leasure

King Louie came on Wednesdays he'd tiptoe up the stairs
reach for the light switch, surprise whoever's there
and make a fuss about his old lady gettin screwed
he'd catch em with their pants down, a shake down a runaround
serves you right for buyin sex down on graves end
and ave x

And one day your decided to cut loose from the creep
you left a note on his machine after the beep
sayin isn't it strange louie that yr so short and fat
considering what a snake you are a snake with two legs and a hat

and that night when you heard King Louie climb the stairs
you remembered with a sigh how trouble comes in pairs
how you'd never own a dish washer and never know your dad
at least he'll never know how you wound up selling sex
down on gravesend and ave x.

Pual Jay
I first met Jim in 1985 when my friend Michele Shocked took me to the Speakeasy for their open mic night I was 18 years old. There at the bar stood a tall geeky guy with a shit eating grin and a heart of gold. Jim reminded me of everything good about America and Rock n Roll.

Our friend Michele was mentally unstable and sometimes prone to erratic and cruel behavior. This was no problem for Jim since he is quite possibly the only human being I ever met who took EVERYTHING in stride. He had a joyful grace that permeated all his actions.

When our friend got her record deal with PolyGram, she invited us to go to California to record on her record. While we where there we where staying at a weird condo community far from the studio with no car, in LA YIKES! True to form our friend went a little psycho on us and as I cried in my room Jim walked in and tried to cheer me up.

You see I was having a couple of bad years being that I had left home at 16 and was dirt poor and had never been anywhere outside of NYC, I was a troubled teen with a great voice and a huge desire to be a star. When Jim realized I'd never been anywhere, He said," well you've gotta see Hollywood girl, I might have some friends somewhere."

Next thing I know here comes Jim about an hour later with a beat up Dodge Dart and a great big smile. He told me how he "borrowed" the car from a friend and then he laughed a laugh somewhere between mischief and childlike innocence.

We started our adventure of LA up in the Hollywood Hills, up to Topanga canyon down to Santa Monica and Venice beach to watch the hippies and muscle freaks. It was a great day with Jim, who went from being my friend to being my big brother.

When you're 18 almost every man you meet wants to get into your pants, Not Jim. That day was perfect because he made me feel safe and loved for just being me. I think Jim had actually made plans with some LA buddies and instead spent the day with a wide-eyed teenaged girl.

He told me some pretty great stories of all his cross-country adventures. I remember that day so vividly because at that point in my life it was one of the most exciting days I'd had. It was also one of the kindest things anyone had done for me. We laughed a lot that day and I got the feeling that Jims' big smile came from watching me be so happy and knowing he was responsible for it.

I was happy to know such a great honorable man and happy to have shared laughs and music with him.

Over the years we lost touch but I would go to the bottom line every now and then and Jim would always be there and we'd share a drink, hug and some stories old and new. That feeling of brotherhood never left me with Jim he just always knew how to have an open heart, truly a rare thing with us humans.

I was honored to be at his memorial service. It was beautiful and I got to pay my respects to a rare gem of a human being.

I don't know why it is that only the great ones go so soon. But I guess it's true what a wise old voice teacher told me once, after my friend Jeff Buckley died, "Well honey, if you were God, Would you want to hang out with the assholes?"

Sophia Ramos 6/10/06
I first met Jim at the Speakeasy. This was my first experience being around musicians, writing and performing on stage. I didn't get to know him, but he was always around smiling and having fun with the crowd at the bar. I became friends with other songwriters from the Monday Open Mikes who were friends of Jim. I was introduced to Jim and would see him here and there. We would always exchange smiles in passing. Everyone I knew from that scene loved Jim. I stopped going to the Speakeasy after a year or two and I guess Jim had moved on even before that.

I would see my songwriter friends periodically through the years. It wasn't until I called a friend to catch up that I heard of the accident. My friend spoke of Jim's amazing career working with Shawn Colvin, etc. and I'm sure it was only the tip of the iceberg. Obviously everyone who knew him loved Jim and were heartbroken. For whatever reason, I was painfully shy and manufactured feeling intimidated by him. When I saw him I never knew what to say.

We meet people in our life, and every encounter is an opportunity. So back in 1988, even though I never felt confidant in saying anything to Jim, without words he made me feel included by his calm, accepting, no problem nature.

Ken Korreis 6/6/06
Hi.
My cousin is Lisa. My wife, Cindy, and I first met Jim during our wedding on May 16, 1998. Jim and Lisa had only known each other for a short while and I remember distinctly how sincerely nice he was upon my first meeting with him. We did not talk much, but he seemed very cool and real. Whenever my wife and I re-watch our wedding video, we often see Lisa and Jim standing in the corner of the dance floor, not dancing, but probably making fun of how bad everyone else is dancing. I did not know Jim very well but I got the strong impression that he was a loyal and honorable man.
Christmas Eve 2000, Clifton,NJ, Jim was wearing his Santa Claus hat, and he was the official caller for the handing out of the family presents. I have that night on DVD and I often watch it. My son was only 5 months old but I remember Jim calling his name every minute with a new gift from some family member. He seemed like he was always happy.
Things you never forget.
Thanks for your time.
Rick Ford

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:43
IT'S BIN ALMOST 2 YEARS NOW SINCE WE LOST JIM.I felt I needed to speak out.I wish I had more time to know him better.I wish I could tell him thank you for taking the time to set up care for Helen our mother-in-law.She was a free spirit that will never be forgotten.I wish I could thank Jim for loving our Lisa.I'd never seen her so happy as when she was with Jim.I hope Jim is at peace and celebrating death as he celebrated life.In honor of your life Jim I wish you all the best. Love always, NANCY
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 03:25
I'll the story of how Jim and I met. It is telling towards his love of music.
We were standing in the hallway before music class, he 14 and I 13 and I sang the guitar part to Jumping Jack Flash, having gotten into the Stones that summer at summer camp and he instantly recognized it and sang along. We were friends for life from that moment on.
Ky
Austin, TX USA - Saturday, July 31, 2004 at 01:39:41 (EDT)
All right, I'm testing it out again, so I guess I'd better tell another story. Here's the story of how we went to Alice, TX:

Sept - 1978
In Boulder, Jim bought a VW bus named Alice. This was the first time either of us had owned a vehicle of any sort. We went for a trip to Badeauxland in Houston, Texas.
On the way, we visited St. John’s College in Santa Fe, where they study only “the Great Texts.”

We were in Austin in October hanging out at a bar called The Split Rail (later to burn down) and driving around town hoping to find hitchhikers we could bum gas money from.
We got to Houston in November and was there until Thanksgiving.
Around Thanksgiving, my cousin Phred showed on a leg of his first cross country excursion. He was traveling with friends, Howard (the Duck) and Jenia. They had a lovely Ford Rambler that they were traveling in, but they left it behind when we all headed out to Padre Island in Jim’s VW microbus. We tried to sleep on the beach in Alice and got thoroughly eaten by mosquitoes and took to the road in the middle of the night. We didn’t know where to go, so took out the map and found we were near a town named Alice. We went there and hung out at an all nite diner there in Alice, Texas.
Ky
Austin, TX USA - Saturday, July 31, 2004 at 01:31:06 (EDT)
Dear Friends,
I'm afraind the spammers have found our guestbook and are sending crap up to it. I will try to keep it clear and perhpas it will be a closed board at some point.
I just made a change to it, so I am testing it out (again). Here is a story of a trip Jim and I took back in 1978:

Sept, 1978
Jim and I took off for Boulder, CO from NYC. The trip got off to a rousing start. We stayed with Soo-See in a small town in New Jersey called Roosevelt. Roosevelt, NJ was not only a lovely central New Jersey town but an enclave of cool musicians that knew about Willie Nelson before his picture was on the cover of Newsweek and Time. This left Soo-See to see us off by leaving us on an on-ramp in Heightstown, NJ. Soon after we got there, a police officer parked his car across the highway from us. He checked our ID and went back to just sitting there for an hour until he came back to remind us that hitchhiking was totally illegal in New Jersey. Maybe we had been sitting there a long time while he ran our IDs or maybe we just sat there waiting for him to leave, but in any case it had been a few hours and it was getting late in the afternoon. So we decided since hitchhiking was illegal all the way across the state, we had to get through another way, so we took a bus to Pennsylvania. However the only way we could do that was to take a bus that went all the way back (east) to NYC and then back out (west) to Harrisburg. We picked Harrisburg because we would reach that stop on the line about the time the sun up the next day so we could hitching again. The bus left from Princeton, NJ to NYC at about 11:00 that night and then went out to Harrisburg. Coincidently, or maybe this was in the decision making process, but this very cool band we had heard about in Roosevelt called the Nighthawks, was playing that night in Princeton at a party held at the college during initiation week or something.
So Jim and I took the bus to Princeton. We had met members of a band called the Nighthawks, who were playing at “Welcome New Students” party there and we had time to go to the party for an hour or two before our bus left. First we played on the street for a little while, but got chased off by the police there. We hung out on campus until the party started. The Nighthawks were really great and there was a keg of beer at this party. The party was hosted by a student organization and we looked very out of place with our backpacks and instruments beside us as we sat and enjoyed the music and beer. Eventually one of the student leaders sauntered our way (with her posse behind) and said hello. Then they asked hesitantly, “are you students?” I said “yes” and simultaneously Jim said “no,” so I amended it after a second thought and said, “we’re visiting students.” They all nodded their heads at that and we could hear the brains rattling inside their heads as they considered what a “visiting student” might be. Jim and I grabbed our packs and headed for the bus station before any further questions were asked.

As we had planned, we rode to Port Authority in NYC and then off by bus again to the capital of Pennsylvania, where we had our picture taken in a photomat machine that gave you one picture set it in a plastic frame. we sent that back to Soo-See.
We hitched across Ohio, where one of our rides was going to a small State Fair where Lester Flatt, the guitar playing partner of Bluegrass’s Flatt & Scruggs duo, was playing. We went for the day and got to see a tired musician giving one of his last performances amongst the local bands of Northeastern Ohio.
Another memorable stop on this trip was in Ann Arbor, MI. We went there looking for friends of Jim’s that we never did find. We had arrived there in the middle of the night, so we decided to just hang out at the Denny’s on the edge of town until the morning when we’d go look for his friends. At a about 4:30 in the morning, we met this guy who had a motel room and he invited us to come crash. As he explained it, he was having a party and there were some other people there also. The party ended up lasting all week as he was celebrating $1,000 that had just come his way (we think he had set a van on fire for the insurance money). We stayed for about five days. We’d go out during the day and hang out enjoying Ann Arbor’s laid back University neighborhood. We’d play music and try to locate Jim’s friends. Then at night, we’d hitch back out to the Denny’s where a cast of partiers would be drinking, smoking and eating (the pizza guy got invited in for a while) and we’d crash on the floor. When we couldn’t locate Jim’s friends, we continued on our journey and the party was still going on.
From there we went up through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and across over to Wisconsin. This was the most rural area I’d ever been in and certainly most least populated I’d ever hitched through at that point. The rides were slow to come, but the unspoiled (or at least less-spoiled) countryside was beautiful.


Ky Hote
Austin, TX USA - Saturday, July 31, 2004 at 01:16:58 (EDT)

What a treat it was on 9/8, sharing and celebrating Jim's
spirit in the most appropriate way: playing and listening
to great music. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Ky. Thanks, everybody.
Banjo Jim is Everywhere.

I thought I'd shoot this piece along to live here...

J-CRO
Jimmy
Jim
What's happenin', man
EVERYTHING is cool

On a rainy day
A lousy night
A raging great time
It was all the same to Jim
Another day being as steady and reliable
As my dad walking me in for my first haircut
Driving me to my first recital
The first to see me in trouble and looking for help
Never, ever so busy as to not hear me, not see me, not smile at me
Never too busy to laugh

That laugh
It had the wind-up and delivery
Of a major-league screw ball
It wasn't unlike what you might hear from someone
Who has just jumped from a great height
It can only come forth from one who knows without a doubt
That this life can, and will always offer up something truly ridiculous

For me, and this may be a "guy thing"...I dunno
That laugh began erupting
The first time there weren't any
Grown-ups around
We're getting away with something
And we'll ALWAYS get away with it
It's the laughter of the liberated
The unleashed hounds of mirth
It's guilt free, it holds not a trace of ill
You hear it, and you're eight, hearing your first dirty joke
You hear it, and you're twelve, watching your best friend make a fool of himself
You hear it, and your eighteen, with your buds in a dorm room after your third bong-hit
I intend to hear it as long as I possibly can


He was busier than anyone
He worked harder than everyone put together
His job was putting them all together
He always kept it together in the best way
It never seemed like he was working
Sweats and swears and toxic comments came from lesser folks

There were many show-days when I didn't realize that I was waiting to exhale
Until I saw Jim
Then, I was home...
Don't mess with me, my big brother is over there
And he doesn't miss a thing
This house is his castle
But I feel like a king
It's unbelievable
He builds us a treehouse in a new place in the woods
Every day
Here was a guy you wanted to hang with
Here was a guy with so much warmth and light loping around with him
That just saying "what's up" was getting a great big bear-hug
Now that I think of it, being greeted by Jim was a musical experience

If there was trouble, it didn't start with Jim
If there were hard-feelings, they didn't dwell in him
In those times when the noxious fumes and abnoxious fools seem to rule the day
When jerks and creeps and their mischief hold sway

I'll think of you Jim, raise my hands like a Pope
And bellow the question that conjours up hope
May be your way of saying 'enough is enough'
Life is too short, man...
Where is the love?


~Jon Carroll
Mary Chapin Carpenter Band






Jonathan Carroll <jdcarroll88(at)verizon.net>
Leesburg, Va USA - Thursday, September 11, 2003 at 11:03:48 (EDT)
Notes from an email Feb. 3rd, 2003:

Jim was my friend for over 30 years. Our relationship survived fires that only strengthened it. He was the only person who got all of my jokes. I will spare you examples here. Jim encouraged my music always. He himself was a talented musician who enjoyed the supportive role. In his last years, he was a respected and sought after "Roadie" for such acts as Suzanne Vega, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Richard Thompson, Sean Colvin, Art Garfunkel and Dar Williams. Five years ago, he met the love of his life, Lisa and they were married last year on Memorial Day. In those five years or so, he also took the time to get in touch with friends and family that he'd lost touch with, celebrating the fact that his life was settling down for a change. His health was great, his outlook was fantastic.
I guarantee you that I have gone through all the stages of grief over and over again. The anger stage is easy to fall into. How can a life like this be cut short? What right does God have to take from us what we treasure so? Why? There are no satisfying answer to these questions. Is it chance or predestined? Neither answer soothes the sadness I feel that I won't run into Jim again and see his smile.
The memorial last Sunday helped a lot though. I heard many people get up and speak about how touched their life, as he touched mine. Jim truly loved all his friends and made them each feel special. Jim would have acknowledged that grief is important and there is no greater therapy than a good cry (I've had plenty, believe me), but he would also insist that we need to get on with our lives and live them to the fullest. He would have insisted that he was just one man in a great continuum. I would have to disagree. Jim was more than just one man. Brian Cutean wrote:
"A Hero is a person who sets up torches
So people can see at night.
A Saint, that's a person who walks in darkness
And gives off a special light"
Jim was both of these.
His friend Eve (from his NYC Speakeasy days) said it best, when she said that now that he's gone, we all have to be a little more like him.
The following is excerpted from a letter from Dan Levinson, who was a classmate of Jim and I (back in 1973):
"Jim’s service yesterday was fantastically beautiful. It took place in a large meeting room with heavy wood trim and lace curtains ­ not a funeral home. Many people spoke of Jim, his laugh, huge heart, basic decency. With Jim it was not “what he did” or “what he accomplished” ­ it was his quality as a human being, his knack for seeing the good (even when he experienced a lot of bad) ­ and always always being there for people. Mary Chapin Carpenter, with whom Jim worked for years, played two songs. Ky Hote, from our MCS class, also played a beautiful tribute (Silent Pauses).
"After all who wished to spoke, Jim’s wife of six months spoke with such conviction, love, appreciation and strength ­ it was inspiring. Jim and Lisa where truly soul mates who had finally found each other. Lisa expressed her gratitude for the years with Jim, for the gift of his love and their relationship, and it was all true and deeply moving.
"It’s a shame to have to die, but more and more I am realizing two things: (1) death is within my love, not greater than it, so I can keep people with me who have passed on; and (2) the only thing I can take from death and beautiful partings is to bring even greater immediacy and energy to life.
"In his own quiet unobtrusive way Jim was a model human being. He was truly a beautiful person."


Please cry - it is manly, womanly and appropriate. Then listen to some Dylan songs, some Beatles songs... play some music, share some laughter.
"May you stay
... Forever Young" (Bob Dylan)


Love to you, Ky
ps BanjoJim is everywhere.

Ky Hote <Imeasytofind@worldtheater.com>
Austin, TX USA - Thursday, September 11, 2003 at 09:08:43 (EDT)
Well I'm trying out the new bulletin Board at Banjo Jim's website - wouldn't he be impressed. I remember when he first talked to me about getting a laptop and then wondering if he should get a web site and here it is.
It's one day after the amazing Banjo Jim Celebration at the Bottom Line in NYC. The music was wonderful and the diversity showed the incredible range of influence that Jim had in this world. I am constantly reminded how blessed we are to have him in our lives. Peace to y'all, Ky
Ky Hote <dontspammeplease@decencyrules.com>
Austin, TX USA - Tuesday, September 09, 2003 at 22:50:40 (EDT)

   Greetings friends! I hope you all are as blessed as I am by this very deserving bulletin board for our love Banjo Jim Croce. Many thanks to Ky Hote for making this happen.
These days I try to live like he would want me to. Jim taught me to have a good time all the time (This is Spinal Tap was the 1st movie we watched together!). We traveled all over the country and also Europe, Canada and Bermuda together. I never laughed so much in my life as I did the 6 years I spent with him. Sometimes some of those ridiculous things he would do or say still make me laugh now. We made a beautiful home and family together: Lisa, Jim and Banjo(the dog). He helped me take care of both my parents who were both very sick. He helped me through depression after my father died of cancer. Those difficult times were just a few blinks in the light of all the wonderful, fun times we had together. He was the greatest man I've ever known, the best friend I've ever had and NO ONE ever loved me more. Bob Dylan in Wedding Song says . . I love you more than blood. We truly loved each other more than blood.

My heart still breaks, but I feel him with me all the time. Often I see that gorgeous grin in my dreams. No other person affected my life more positively, spiritually and wholly than Jim. He'll always be the love of my life.