Bobbie Gentry remains one of the most interesting and underappreciated artists to emerge out of Nashville during the late '60s. Best-known for her crossover smash "Ode to Billie Joe," she was one of the first female country artists to write and produce much of her own material, forging an idiosyncratic, pop-inspired sound that, in tandem with her glamorous, bombshell image, anticipated the rise of latter-day superstars like Shania Twain and Faith Hill. Of Portuguese descent, Gentry was born Roberta Streeter in Chickasaw County, MS, on July 27, 1944; her parents divorced shortly after her birth and she was raised in poverty on her grandparents' farm. After her grandmother traded one of the family's milk cows for a neighbor's piano, seven-year-old Bobbie composed her first song, "My Dog Sergeant Is a Good Dog," years later self-deprecatingly reprised in her nightclub act; at 13, she moved to Arcadia, CA, to live with her mother, soon beginning her performing career in local country clubs. The 1952 film Ruby Gentry lent the singer her stage surname.
After graduating high school, Gentry settled in Las Vegas, where she appeared in the Les Folies Berg--re nightclub revue; she soon returned to California, studying philosophy at U.C.L.A. before transferring to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. In 1964, she made her recorded debut, cutting a pair of duets -- "Ode to Love" and "Stranger in the Mirror" -- with rockabilly singer Jody Reynolds. Gentry continued performing in clubs in the years to follow before an early 1967 recording a demo found its way to Capitol Records producer Kelly Gordon; upon signing to the label, she issued her debut single, "Mississippi Delta." However, disc jockeys began spinning the B-side, the self-penned "Ode to Billie Joe" -- with its eerily spare production and enigmatic narrative detailing the suicide of Billie Joe McAllister, who flings himself off the Tallahatchie Bridge, the single struck a chord on country and pop radio alike, topping the pop charts for four weeks in August 1967 and selling three million copies. Although the follow-up, "I Saw an Angel Die," failed to chart, Gentry nevertheless won three Grammy awards, including Best New Artist and Best Female Vocal. She was also named the Academy of Country Music's Best New Female Vocalist.
With her second album, 1968's The Delta Sweete, Gentry returned to the country charts with the minor hit "Okolona River Bottom Band." Although her recordings were typically credited to Capitol staff producers, she later maintained she helmed the sessions herself and also wrote much of her own material, drawing on her Mississippi roots to compose revealing vignettes that typically explored the lifestyles, values, and even hypocrisies of the southern culture. Favoring more soulful and rootsy arrangements over the lavish countrypolitan style in vogue in Nashville at the time, Gentry's records sound quite unlike anything on either the country or pop charts at the time and her smoky, sensuous voice adapted easily to a variety of musical contexts. But to many listeners, she remained a one-hit wonder and her excellent third album, 1968's Local Gentry, received little notice. That same year, Gentry issued a duet album with Glen Campbell, returning to the country Top 20 with "Let It Be Me"; the duo regularly collaborated throughout the 1970s, scoring their biggest hit with a reading of "All I Really Want to Do."
In 1969, Gentry reached her creative zenith with Touch 'Em With Love -- though cut in Nashville, the record owed far more to the gritty R&B sounds emanating across the state in Memphis and generated her first U.K. number one, a smoldering rendition of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David perennial "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." The single's success also earned Gentry her own short-lived BBC television variety series. However, as her star diminished stateside, she became a fixture of the Las Vegas circuit, mounting an elaborate nightclub revue that she not only headlined but also wrote and produced, even overseeing the choreography and costuming. Gentry's 1969 marriage to Desert Inn Hotel manager Bill Harrah ended after only three months, but the following year she returned to the county and pop Top 40 with the title cut from her fifth album Fancy. In 1971, she issued her final Capitol effort, Patchwork, primarily confining her performing to her nightclub act for the next several years. A CBS summer replacement series, The Bobbie Gentry Happiness Hour, aired for four episodes in 1974; Gentry next surfaced on the big screen, credited as co-writer for a 1976 film adaptation of Ode to Billie Joe. After a second marriage, to fellow singer/songwriter Jim Stafford, ended in 1979 after only 11 months, Gentry gradually receded from public view, retiring from performing and eventually settling in Los Angeles. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
Ode To Billie Joe (1967)
Gentry's debut LP, which went to number one on the pop charts, was a promising but not wholly satisfying disc, with the singer penning all but one of the songs. Inevitably, the title track dwarfed everything else by comparison, but a greater problem was that several of the other tunes recycled variations of the "Ode to Billie Joe" riff. On the other hand, "Mississippi Delta" is gloriously tough, throaty swamp rock; few other women pop singers have sounded as raw. Other good cuts were "I Saw an Angel Die," an effective mating of Gentry's country-blues guitar riffs and low-key orchestration, and the jazz waltz-timed "Papa, Woncha Let Me Go to Town With You." Her vocals are poised and husky throughout the record, on which she was definitely on the right track -- one that she was quickly diverted from, into more MOR-oriented sounds. - Richie Unterberger
Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell (1968)
Bobbie Gentry would soon become a regular guest on Glen Campbell's genial television variety show, where her pantsuited, beehived country-pop bombshell image belied her delicate, sweet voice and smart, blues-tinged songwriting. Sadly, the latter is under-represented here, as only her minor "Mornin' Glory" makes the cut (compared to two of Campbell's own songs and a sweet but slight duet remake of his signature song, John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind"), but Gentry's special vocal blend with Campbell -- the pair's voices harmonize utterly delightfully -- is the real highlight of this set. The song selection is pop-oriented, featuring surprising cover choices like Simon & Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" and, even better, a winning version of Margo Guryan's "Sunday Morning" that's surprisingly well-suited to Kelly Gordon and Al DeLory's countrypolitan production. However, Bob Russell's "Little Green Apples" is smarmy mush no matter who records it. This album is well worth seeking out for fans of both singers. - Stewart Mason
Local Gentry (1968)
Local Gentry is an exquisitely wrought collection of character studies steeped in the myth and lore of Southern culture -- from the funeral parlor director portrayed in "Casket Vignette" to the titular "Ace Insurance Man," Bobbie Gentry etches a series of revealing, well-observed narratives populated by folks both larger-than-life and small-time, adding up to something not unlike a country-pop Spoon River Anthology. A subtle, primarily acoustic effort, the record's sound and sensibility are steeped in Gentry's Mississippi upbringing, but despite the music's warmth and humanity, the effect is neither nostalgic nor saccharine -- instead, Gentry wistfully and wryly evokes a colorful rural culture populated by soldiers, widows, and traveling medicine shows. The five original compositions here rank among her most literate and personal, while covers like the Beatles' "Fool on the Hill" and "Eleanor Rigby" add to the roll call of misfits, eccentrics, and beautiful losers. Like all of Gentry's efforts, it's ripe for reissue. - Jason Ankeny
The Delta Sweete (1968)
Delta Sweete was Bobbie Gentry's 1968 follow-up to her hugely popular Ode to Billie Joe record -- the title track topped the pop charts and made the country Top 20. Although it doesn't quite match the quality of Ode, Delta Sweete does contain a good selection of Gentry originals and some fine covers. The "Sweete" in the title refers to both Gentry's southern-belle good looks (her publishing company was called Super Darlin') and the album's suite structure. The 12 segued songs detail Gentry's idyllic Mississippi childhood and include portraits of home and church life ("Reunion," "Sermon"), as well as recollections of blues and country hits she certainly heard as a youngster ("Big Boss Man," "Tobacco Road"). In fact, the prevailing sound on both Delta Sweete and Ode to Billy Joe is a swampy, folk-tinged combination of blues and country, with uptown touches like strings and horns seemingly added to reflect the then modern styles of soul and the Nashville sound. Gentry also includes some dreamy, pastoral originals like "Morning Glory" and "Courtyard," songs that could've been written by melancholy folkster Nick Drake. In light of all the album's good qualities, then, it's a shame it's out of print. Collectables' The Golden Classics of Bobbie Gentry combines the Ode to Billie Joe album with a few tracks from Delta Sweete, including the hits "Okolona River Bottom Band" and "Louisiana Man." - Stephen Cook
Touch Em' With Love (1969)
Touch 'Em With Love is Bobbie Gentry's finest studio effort, a fascinatingly eclectic and genuinely affecting record that broadened her musical horizons far beyond the limitations of the Nashville sound. Its unexpectedly gritty, soulful production makes it something of a spiritual twin to Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis, also released in 1969 (both even feature renditions of "Son of a Preacher Man"): Gentry's husky, sensual delivery proves as ideally suited for the Southern-fried funk of the opening title track as it does for the bluegrass-flavored "Natural to Be Gone," deftly moving from genre to genre to encompass everything from faux-gospel ("Glory Hallelujah, How They'll Sing") to lushly orchestrated pop ("I Wouldn't Be Surprised," the disc's centerpiece). Even more eye-opening is that Gentry's originals stand tall alongside material from composers including Burt Bacharach ("I'll Never Fall in Love Again," which earned her a chart-topping single in the U.K.) and Jimmy Webb ("Where's the Playground, Johnny") -- her folky "Seasons Come, Seasons Go," an acute tale of lost love, offers Touch 'Em With Love's most profoundly beautiful moment. A truly great and tragically under-recognized album. - Jason Ankeny
Fancy (1970)
Fancy is a wild ride through all the contradictions that are Bobbie Gentry. After her breakthrough smash, "Ode to Billy Joe," with its haunted guitar figure and cipher meaning, the Mississippi singer/songwriter became the embodiment of backwoods in the eyes of the American public. But on Fancy, Gentry told the truth of what she aspired to. The title track is a "Billie Joe"-type story with a similar guitar figure; it also has a host of West Coast horns telling an unapologetic rags-to-riches story without regrets that mirrors Gentry's own. But it only begins here. From here, Gentry, assisted or perhaps directed by producer Rich Hall, cuts a pair of Bacharach/David numbers ("Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again"), James Taylor's "Something in the Way He (sic) Moves," Leon Russell's "Delta Man" (sic), Nilsson's "Rainmaker," Rudy Clark's "If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody," Laura Nyro's "Wedding Bell Blues," and a few others with full strings, horns, orchestras, and glockenspiels for accompaniment -- along with a honky tonk piano, drum kit, and electric bass. What it makes for is even more of a mystery than "Ode to Billie Joe." Gentry's voice, with its smoke-tinged husky contralto, is ill-suited to this material. But that in itself is what makes this such a fascinating listen. None of it works, yet as a result, it's kind of a shambolic masterpiece. Not for the weak, but a compelling experience if you can make it through. - Thom Jurek
Patchwork (1971)
Bobbie Gentry's Masterpiece, Patchwork, has been long, LONG overdue for a release on CD. One of the greatest overlooked albums of the seventies, Patchwork is an incredibly intriguing collection of short stories set to nearly every musical style one can think of, with unforgettable melodies, great arrangements and, of course, Gentry's distinctive vocals. Gentry's stories of the American South, like her previous landmark efforts, Ode to Billie Joe and the often covered Fancy, are nearly all gems of poetry, with fully-realized characters, surprise plot twists and deeply felt emotions. And a lot of humor thrown in as well, which makes this record great fun. Had she been a novelist instead of a songwriter, she could have been one of our country's greatest authors, and her stories would have made for some great films. I'm glad I was around long enough to hear this stunning work in such crystal clear sound. My worn, scratched LP of this can now be put to rest. As a bonus, we get the whole Fancy album as well, although it is mostly a collection of covers that contains only one Gentry original - the title cut, which has proven its status as an American classic in remake after remake. It is a great loss to us all that Bobbie Gentry no longer writes and records, but at least she left us this. - Larry Badgley
Sittin' Pretty/Tobacco Road (1971)
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