Editing You Don't Mess Around with Jim (section)

==History and release==
The album was recorded over a three to four-week period for approximately $18,000, with most funding coming from the [[PolyGram]] Group in [[Baarn]], the [[Netherlands]], on the basis of hearing an eight-song demo tape assembled by production team [[Cashman & West]]. The deal with PolyGram was made after team attorney Phil Kurnit approached a contact within the record company who then had PolyGram executives listen to the demo tape.
After having the finished album rejected by up to 40 record labels, Croce was signed to ABC Records after Cashman & West had a chance meeting with ABC promotion man Marty Kupps. Kupps urged label head Jay Lasker to sign Croce after hearing cuts from a cassette tape of the finished album.

The record spent 93 weeks on the charts, longer than any other Jim Croce album. Due to the strong performance of the posthumous single release "[[Time in a Bottle]]" (#1 pop, No. 1 AC), ''You Don't Mess Around with Jim'' was the best selling album in the U.S. for five weeks in early 1974.<ref>Whitburn, Joel. ''The Billboard Book of Top Pop Albums 1955–1985'', Record Research Inc., 1985, p. 88, 505.</ref> It was listed at No. 6 on the 1974 ''[[Cash Box]]'' year-end album charts.<ref>{{cite web|title=The ''Cash Box'' 1974 year-end album charts|url=http://cashboxmagazine.com/archives/70s_files/1974YEAP.html|access-date=August 30, 2022}}</ref> Two singles were originally released from the album in 1972: the [[You Don't Mess Around with Jim (song)|title track]] (#8 pop) and "[[Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)]]" (#17 pop).

The album was issued on CD by the Rhino Flashbacks record label on September 30, 2008.