Who are you kidding? LeRoy Brown could be referring to mafia, Columbian drug dealer, hell's angel?....right! All the likely people referred to as LeRoy Browns by you in the Bronx in the 70's.
Check out ***** box for details on neighborhood.
No mention of race!
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"
Single by Jim Croce
from the album Life and Times
Label ABC Records
Writer(s) Jim Croce
Jim Croce singles chronology
"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is the title of a song written by American folk rock singer Jim Croce. Released as part of his 1973 album Life and Times, the song was a Number One pop hit for him, spending two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1973. Croce was nominated for two 1973 Grammy awards in the Pop Male Vocalist and Record of the Year categories for "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown".[1]
Content
The song is about a man from the south side of Chicago who, due to his size and attitude, has a reputation as the "baddest man in the whole damn town." One day, in a bar, he makes a pass at a pretty, married woman, whose jealous husband proceeds to beat Leroy brutally in the ensuing brawl.
Croce tells a nearly identical story (tough guy whom everybody fears is brutally beaten when he meets an even tougher guy) in his hit single "You Don't Mess Around With Jim."
Inspiration
His inspiration for the song was a friend he met in his brief time in the Army:
I met him at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. We were in lineman (telephone) school together. He stayed there about a week, and one evening he turned around and said he was really fed up and tired. He went AWOL, and then came back at the end of the month to get his pay check. They put handcuffs on him and took him away. Just to listen to him talk and see how 'bad' he was, I knew someday I was gonna write a song about him.[2]
He told a variation of this story on the Helen Reddy show in July 1973:
This is a song about a guy I was in the army with... It was at Fort Dix, in New Jersey, that I met this guy. He was not made to climb the tree of knowledge, as they say, but he was strong, so nobody'd ever told him what to do, and after about a week down there he said "Later for this" and decided to go home. So he went AWOL, which means to take your own vacation, and he did. But he made the mistake of coming back at the end of the month to get his paycheck. I don't know if you've ever seen handcuffs put on anybody, but it was SNAP and that was the end of it for a good friend of mine, who I wrote this tune about, named Leroy Brown.[3]
Croce explained the chorus reference to Leroy Brown being "meaner than a junkyard dog":
Yeah, I spent about a year and a half driving those $29 cars, so I drove around a lot looking for a universal joint for a '57 Chevy panel truck or a transmission for a '51 Dodge. I got to know many junkyards well, and they all have those dogs in them. They all have either an axle tied around their necks or an old lawnmower to keep 'em at least slowed down a bit, so you have a decent chance of getting away from them.[2]
Pro wrestlers Junkyard Dog and Bad Leroy Brown are said to have gotten their ring name from this song.[citation needed]
The song inspired Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury (who cited Croce as one of his artistic inspirations) to write the song "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" for the band's third album, Sheer Heart Attack, released a year after Croce died.
Cover versions
This article is about the southern part of the City of Chicago. For the region south of Chicago, see Chicago Southland.
The Victory Monument, which listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located in the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District near the starting point of the Bud Billiken Parade.
In 2008, One Museum Park (left May 25, 2008) replaced 1700 East 56th Street (right June 2, 2007) as the tallest South Side building. It has also replaced 340 on the Park as the tallest all-residential building in Chicago.
A typical Chicago Bungalow, which are found in an abundance on the South Side.
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29, 1889 elections.[1] Regions of the city, referred to as sides, are divided by the Chicago River and its branches.[2][3] The South Side of Chicago was originally defined as all of the city south of the main branch of the Chicago River,[4][5] but it now excludes the Loop.[3] The South Side has a varied ethnic composition, and it has great disparity in income and other demographic measures.[6] The South Side covers 60% of the city's land area, with a higher ratio of single-family homes and larger sections zoned for industry than the rest of the city.[7][8]
******************************************************** Although it has endured a reputation as being poor or crime-infested, the reality is more varied. The South Side ranges from affluent to working class to impoverished.[9][10] Neighborhoods such as Armour Square, Back of the Yards, Bridgeport, and Pullman tend to be composed of more blue collar residents, while Hyde Park, the Jackson Park Highlands District, Kenwood, and Beverly tend to have middle, upper-middle class, and affluent residents.[11]
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The South Side boasts a broad array of cultural and social offerings, such as professional sports teams, landmark buildings, nationally renowned museums, elite educational institutions, world class medical institutions, and major parts of the city's elaborate parks system. The South Side is serviced by bus and 'L' train via the Chicago Transit Authority and a number of Metra lines.[12] In addition, it has several interstate and national highways to serve vehicular traffic.[13]