Question: The real-life version of the song by Jim Croce was a professional what?

Context articles: I Got a Name
Home Recordings: Americana
Have You Heard: Jim Croce Live
Age (song)
Ingrid Croce
Facets (album)
Jim Croce Live: The Final Tour
Jerry Reed Sings Jim Croce
Jim Croce
Leroy Brown (wrestler)

I Got a Name is the fifth and final studio album (and first posthumous release) by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, released on December 1, 1973.
 It features the ballad "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song", which reached number 9 in the US singles chart, and the ballad "Salon and Saloon", the last song Croce recorded in his lifetime.
 The song was written by his guitarist Maury Muehleisen and was included on the album as a gift to the writer.
 The song is noted for its sparse piano only vocal backing.
 This would be Croce's final album recorded during his lifetime, as Croce died in a plane crash shortly before the album's title song was released, leaving wife Ingrid Croce and son Adrian J. Croce.
 The title track, the theme from the film "The Last American Hero", was another posthumous hit for Croce, reaching number 10 in the US singles chart.
Home Recordings: Americana is an album by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, released in 2003.
 This album is a compilation of unreleased tracks and demos.
 This compilation was the first new material of Jim Croce's work released since 1973.
 The album also contains liner notes written by Croce's son A.J. Croce and his wife Ingrid Croce.
 The material was originally recorded in 1967 at his Pennsylvania kitchen table on an old Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Have You Heard: Jim Croce Live is a live album by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, released in 2006, over thirty years after his death.
 The album is a companion to a DVD released previously in 2003 of Jim Croce's performances.
 The recordings were taken from different television programs that Croce appeared on.
 Two of the tracks on the DVD, "Time in a Bottle" and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" were cut from the CD release because they were not live performances.
"Age" is a song written and recorded by Jim Croce and his wife Ingrid.
 The song was first recorded in 1969 on their self-titled album.
 Jim Croce would record the song again, this time without Ingrid, for his final album "I Got a Name" in 1973.
 Jerry Reed's cover of the song was released as a single in 1980 on his tribute album to Croce, and it peaked at thirty-six on the "Billboard" country chart.
Ingrid Croce (born April 27, 1947) is an American author, singer-songwriter, and restaurateur.
 She is the widow of singer-songwriter Jim Croce and the mother of singer-songwriter A. J. Croce.
 Between 1964 and 1971, Ingrid and Jim Croce performed as a duo.
 In 1969, Capitol Records released their album, "Jim & Ingrid Croce".
 Their song, "Age", won a country music award in the late 1970s.
Facets is a self-published studio album by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, released in 1966.
 (See 1966 in music).
 Croce had five hundred copies of the album pressed, financed with a $500 cash wedding gift that he and his wife to be, Ingrid Croce, received from his parents.
 Croce's parents were certain that when Jim would fail completely at selling the record, and, realizing that he couldn't support his family as a singer, he would abandon music and finish his college education.
 To their surprise, he not only sold every last record but also turned a profit of almost $2500.
 The majority of those records were sold at Croce's shows.
 Original vinyl copies of "Facets" are extremely rare today; well-preserved copies are known to fetch as much as $1,000 from collectors.
 Shout!
 Factory released an expanded two-disc version in 2004.
Jim Croce Live: The Final Tour is a live album by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce, originally released in 1989, roughly 16 years after his untimely death at age 30 in a plane crash on September 20, 1973.
 Recorded on the 1973 tour, the album features in-concert performances of some of Croce's biggest hits, peppered with stories and banter between songs, adding the inspiration for some of them.
 Two other songs, "Ball of Kerrymuir" and "Shopping for Clothes," were never released on Croce's studio albums.
 This live album has been re-released several times.
Jerry Reed Sings Jim Croce is an album by American country singer Jerry Reed, released in 1980.
 The album is a tribute album for Jim Croce who died in 1973 in a plane crash during the peak of his career.
 Seven of the ten songs were singles released by Croce.
 The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard country chart.
 The song "Age" (b/w "Workin' at the Car Wash Blues") was the only single released from the album.
 It peaked at 36 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
James Joseph "Jim" Croce ( ; January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973) was an American folk and rock singer of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
 Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and singles.
 His songs "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle" reached No. 1 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 chart.
Roland C. Daniels (November 30, 1950 – September 6, 1988) was an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Leroy Brown.
 He took his ring name from the Jim Croce song about "Bad Bad" Leroy Brown, which also became his theme song for a lot of his in ring appearances.
 He later used the ringname Elijah Akeem as he adopted a more militaristic black Muslim character, teaming with Kareem Muhammad as the Muslim Connection and later the Zambuie Express.