Jim Croce went to Villanova University in the early 1960s, a college man who wore tweed jackets and, if you’ll allow a guess, had already memorized Carl Sandburg before he exited high school in Upper Darby Township. You didn’t have to be well-read to know Sandburg’s “Chicago,” you just needed to show up for English class. But Croce soaked in culture wherever he could: Irish folk songs, railroad ballads, early rock ‘n’ roll, Robert Frost and Robert Burns. He showed up to class and listened to old records, and he went to work, too, driving trucks and wrestling jackhammers. He observed Americans who worked hard and played harder, and he sang to them when he plucked his guitar in workingmen’s bars with his calloused hands.

Perhaps the coolest thing about Jim Croce was his instinct for telling American stories — songs populated by people we recognize, both urban and rural, and informed by his own …