Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

Did you know that there really was a Leroy Brown?

When Jim Croce finished college, he wanted to avoid getting drafted and being sent to Vietnam so he signed up for the National Guard. It was when he was at a base in South Carolina, that Croce met a guy named Leroy Brown. Croce and Brown got along very well and actually sang together. But Brown didn’t like the National Guard and he went AWOL. Croce claims that when Brown appeared a week later to pick up his paycheck, he was arrested.

The Leroy Brown that Jim Croce knew really had nothing to do with the Leroy Brown in his famous song. He turned the National Guardsman into the legendary Chicago tough ass that we call came to know - the one who was intimidating with his clothing, his fancy cars, the expensive jewelry and concealed weapons. The only real commonality between the two was that they both made a bad decision and in the end, paid for it.

The Leroy Brown in the song is a wrong-side-of-the-tracks figure. He is an outlaw who gets into a fight with the wrong people in the end. He is a slick gangster type who chases women but he is not as tough as he thinks he is.

The song itself has a blues boogie-woogie beat with a really cool groove. It’s a 1970’s classic and very catchy. A fun fact: Two different wrestlers actually took their names from this song. “Bad, Leroy Brown” and “Junkyard Dog.”

We love performing this song. I absolutely love singing it and our drummer, Sean, gets a kick out of the Dari-isms that I bring to the song.

We will be at The Lamplighter in Chester on Saturday, July 13th and you can hear us perform this one and many other 1970’s classic rock songs.