Bobbie Gentry

Ode to Billie Joe

Bobbie Gentry was born Roberta Lee Streeter on July 27, 1942 near Woodland in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, though one article gives 1944. She was raised by her paternal grandparents on a farm without electricity or plumbing and reportedly wrote her first song at seven, played on the black keys of a piano. As a teenager she lived with her father in Greenwood, learned guitar and banjo, and at thirteen moved to Palm Springs, California. Her stage name came from the 1952 film Ruby Gentry. After high school in 1960 she moved to Los Angeles, studied at UCLA and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, and worked as a model and nightclub performer. A 1966 duet single with Jody Reynolds on Titan did not chart.

Demos were recorded in Glendale in February and March 1967, she signed with Capitol on June 23, 1967, and "Ode to Billie Joe" was released on July 10 and reached number one in the US on August 26; the debut album followed on August 21. Wikipedia says she was one of the first female artists in the US to compose and produce her own material. The Delta Sweete (1968), a concept album on which she played most instruments, reached 132, Local Gentry followed in 1968, and Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell (September 1968) reached 11, topped the country chart, went Gold and won the ACM Album of the Year. Touch 'Em with Love (1969) produced the UK number one "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", Fancy (1970) was produced by Rick Hall at FAME in Muscle Shoals, and Patchwork (1971) was her first fully self-written and self-produced album.

BBC2 gave her a series from July 13, 1968, the first BBC series fronted by a female songwriter, and more followed in 1969 and 1971 with a band led by John Cameron. She was a Las Vegas headliner, first at Caesars Palace in 1968 and with her own show at the Landmark from May 1971, and made a CBS summer show in 1974. Her last Las Vegas production was at the Sahara in September 1980, and her last public appearance came at a country music awards show on April 29 or 30, 1982. She has not recorded, performed or given interviews since.

Mercury Rev's The Delta Sweete Revisited (February 2019) featured Phoebe Bridgers, Beth Orton, Norah Jones, Margo Price and Lucinda Williams, and David Fricke wrote that the original was one of the greatest records people have never heard. Live at the BBC (April 21, 2018) and the eight-disc box The Girl from Chickasaw County: The Complete Capitol Masters (September 21, 2018), compiled by Andrew Batt, were nominated for Best Historical Album. She entered the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020. Tara Murtha's 2015 book in the 33 1/3 series covers the song.