ABC Records · Public domain

Jim Croce spent years working odd jobs to support his songwriting before his 1972 album You Don't Mess Around with Jim broke through, producing hits including "Time in a Bottle." His follow-up, Life and Times, gave him his only number-one single during his lifetime, "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." He died in a plane crash in 1973, one day before the release of his fifth album's lead single, and his music continued charting for years afterward.