Everything about Bobbie Gentry totally explained
Roberta Lee Streeter (born
July 27 1944,
Chickasaw County, Mississippi), professionally known as
Bobbie Gentry, is an American
singer-songwriter. Gentry was one of the first female
country artists to write and produce her own material. She forged her own idiosyncratic, pop-inspired sound, with a unique guitar sound and her own singing and phrasing style. Bobbie Gentry charted nine singles in
Billboard Hot 100 The track topped the
Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in August 1967 Inevitably the title track dwarfed everything else by comparison.
The Delta Sweete (1968)
Released in March 1968, Bobbie Gentry's second album,
The Delta Sweete, didn't quite match the success of
Ode to Billie Joe. The "Sweete" in the title referred to both Gentry's southern-belle good looks and the album's suite structure. The LP contained a selection of Bobbie Gentry originals and some covers. The prevailing sound on the album was 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 music and the
Nashville sound. The stories extended from the funeral parlor director portrayed in "Casket Vignette" to the titular "Ace Insurance Man". On the album, Gentry etched a series of revealing, closely observed narratives populated by folks both larger-than-life and petty. The result was something like a country-pop
Spoon River Anthology. and #27 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1969. Gentry toured briefly with Campbell and performed on a number of U.S. and British television programs and specials.
Touch 'Em With Love (1969)
In 1969, Bobbie Gentry recorded the album
Touch 'Em With Love. Though cut in Nashville, the record owed more to the gritty
Rhythm & Blues sounds emanating across the state in
Memphis, Tennessee. The album peaked at #21 on the U.K. charts.
On
December 18,
1969, Bobbie Gentry married casino entrepreneur
Bill Harrah in
Reno, Nevada, but the marriage lasted only briefly.
Fancy (1970)
Revealing Gentry's
variety show aspirations,
Fancy's songs feature full strings, horns, orchestras, and glockenspiels alongside honky-tonk piano, drum kit, and electric bass. Gentry's voice, with its smoke-tinged husky contralto, was ill-suited to the album's material. The self-penned title song "
Fancy" rose to #26 on the U.S. Country charts and #31 on the
pop charts
The album brought Gentry a nomination for
Best Female Vocalist. Similarly with the rest of her post-"Ode to Billie Joe" albums, it had little commercial success.
Stage performances and TV work (1971-1978)
Due to Bobbie Gentry's commercial failure, Capitol didn't renew her contract. Gentry continued to write and perform, touring Europe, generating a significant fan base in the United Kingdom and headlining a Las Vegas review for which she produced, choreographed, wrote and arranged the music., starring
Robby Benson and
Glynnis O'Connor. In the movie, the mystery of the title character's
suicide is revealed as a part of the conflict between his love for Bobbie Lee Hartley and his emerging
homosexuality. Bobbie Gentry's re-recording of the song for the film hit the pop charts, as did Capitol's reissue of the original recording; both peaked outside the top fifty. Her music and lyrics drew on her Mississippi roots to compose revealing vignettes that typically explored the lifestyles, values, and even hypocrisies of the southern culture. In 1973
Ellen McIlwaine scored an uptempo blues/folk rendition of "Ode to Billie Joe". Later it was covered by veteran guitarist
Cornell Dupree giving an instrumental take on the title. The
Austin Lounge Lizards' "Shallow End of the Gene Pool", from their 1995 album
Small Minds, is melodically similar to "Ode to Billie Joe", and ends with the line "and that's why Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge". The
5th Dimension created a soulful version with a voice coming in when mama hollered "Y'all remember to wipe your feet", playing roles with the characters in the song.
Beth Orton wrote another song called "Bobbie Gentry" and released it on her 2003 album
The Other Side of Daybreak. On their 1984 album,
The Third Album, the Scottish band
Orange Juice sing about "the lovely face of Bobbie Gentry" in "Out For The Count".
Bobbie Gentry's act anticipated the rise of latter-day crossover country artists
Shania Twain and
Faith Hill.
[
]Discography
Singles
Original studio albums
Data from All Music Guide[
Further Information]
Get more info on 'Bobbie Gentry'.
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