Ode to Bobbie Gentry, Where Ever You Are
The song is ‘Ode to Billy Joe’, an odd tune with an uncertain rhythm (the strings were added months later) that tells the story of a young woman, working on the family farm on the 3rd of June. When she, her brother, and papa go back to the house for dinner they find out the news from mama that a boy from town, Billy Joe MacAllister, has jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Mama relates the news as they pass around the food. It elicits shrugs and a few desultory anecdotes from papa and brother, but little sister has stopped eating. No one notices but mama, who comments how hard she’s worked and how little she’s eaten. We find that sister and Billy Joe might have had a closer relationship than is known to the family.
And together they threw… something… off that Tallahatchie Bridge.
Bobbi Gentry was a songwriter who by chance and happenstance became a performer. She had a voice with a waver, but that commanded attention. Born Roberta Lee Streeter in Woodlawn Mississippi, she moved to LA in ’55 with her mom, took the last name ‘Gentry’ from a movie, and started to try to be a songwriter. She did clerical work, performed in nightclubs, did modeling (really, she’s stunning), and worked on her songs while attending UCLA.
Then she recorded a couple of demos.
"Mississippi Delta" and the acoustic "Ode to Billie Joe" with ‘Billie Joe’ meant to be the backup were the demos recorded. The producers heard something in ’Ode’, they added strings to Bobbie’s slightly arrhythmic strumming. For some reason, ‘Billie Jo’ was considered country, but give it a listen; nothing really screams country about it. In 1968, the biggest Country Music star was Johnny Cash, finally getting some well-deserved notice from the establishment of ‘Johnny Cash at San Quentin’. Gentry had written a story song of a Mississippi Delta town, of people on this side of the tracks of poverty and the quiet grief of a young woman. Maybe that made it Country. No matter.
That song, “Ode to Billy Joe” was the biggest crossover hit the country and pop charts had ever seen at the time. It was huge. Huge, back when being huge meant, well, not internet huge, or cable network huge, but huge! It was everywhere at every station. Not only was it a tremendous success, but it was now considered a goal by the record company and the music business; you did this, now do better.
Instead, Bobbie went another direction; she didn’t really try to top her success. She could have released ‘Ode to Billy Jo 2’ but she wasn’t interested in that. She wanted to expand, to go where her art and music led her. The Delta Suite, a concept album about life in the modern South. Ten songs, all but two written by Bobbie herself, all produced by her. She was tired of people telling her what to do. The album itself, though, did not do well. It didn’t do ‘Billie Joe’ numbers, hitting 123 on the Billboard with the singles hitting the high 40s and low 50s. Critics liked it, overall, but critics get their albums for free.
Bobbie in the studio. What is she thinking..?
She teamed up with Glen Campbell for a couple of albums, both of which sold well, half Bobbie, half Glenn with some duets.
After a few more albums, and her own TV show and popular Vegas act, Bobbie had had enough, more than enough, of fame, the push and shove of the music business, and the draining tiredness performing can bring. She walked. She had maintained a low profile, but now she stepped out of the lights, and vanished. This time, her friends kept her secrets. Rumor is she's living happily in the LA hills, where no one expects her to explain 'Billy Joe' again, or come up with another huge crossover hit.
She left many mysteries in her wake, like her biggest hit ‘Ode of Billy Joe’, and her life. She had enough and walked away before she could become a nostalgia act, She left the ‘Ode’ to be played and re-played, debated and covered, she left incredibly ambitious albums that were greeted with head-scratching at the time of their release, and she left the pictures, videos, recordings, the mystery of Bobbie herself.
No, she never said what it was they threw off the bridge, not even to her ex-husband singer Jim Stafford, she thought it was silly that people would ask, it was irrelevant.
Bobbie, where are you? Come back, all is forgiven.