The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hi all,

Yesterday was the 68th birthday of singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry. I wrote a 2-part article explaining her significance as a recording artist and why she abandoned her career. Both the single and the album, "Ode to Billie Joe", knocked The Beatles off the top off the pop charts -- "All You Need Is Love" and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. She and Glen Campbell had a very popular duet album, too.

Anyway, the article includes interviews with arranger Jimmie Haskell [Rick Nelson's producer & arranger for 28 years], her guitarist and drummer, singer B.J. Thomas, and former Capitol A&R man Ken Mansfield.

Elvis/Steve McQueen author Marshall Terrill interviewed Mansfield. Mansfield has a lot of connections to the Beach Boys. He was there when the Beach Boys did the Hawaii shows in '67. And Gentry was present for those shows, too.

If anyone has any info on whether the Beach Boys have ever commented on Bobbie Gentry, please let me know. Also, don't hesitate to share your memories/anecdotes below or on Examiner.com.  There hasn't been a major article about her since a 2003 Mojo feature, so it's high time for a new one. I will be writing more about her later this year...




PART ONE     http://www.examiner.com/article/ode-to-bobbie-g-the-music-and-mystery-of-a-mississippi-delta-queen?cid=PROD-redesign-right-next (http://www.examiner.com/article/ode-to-bobbie-g-the-music-and-mystery-of-a-mississippi-delta-queen?cid=PROD-redesign-right-next)


PART TWO    http://www.examiner.com/article/bobbie-gentry-rediscovering-the-girl-from-chickasaw-county (http://www.examiner.com/article/bobbie-gentry-rediscovering-the-girl-from-chickasaw-county)

 Are there any good Bobbie Gentry collections available?

Moon Dawg,

Raven Records in Australia has released every one of Bobbie's albums [a 2 albums per CD type thing]. They started their BG campaign around 2007. However, they will not release her collaboration with Glen Campbell. You would think that one would really sell if marketed properly. It went to No. 11 on the pop charts, No. 1 country. Stayed on the pop charts for 47 weeks, actually beating the chart stay of the Ode to Billie Joe LP [No. 1 Pop, on chart for 30 weeks]. Her second most popular album and a certified Gold one, too. You can find it on iTunes and Amazon as an MP3 download.


If you want an overview of her career, the 2004 Shout! release "Chickasaw County Child: The Artistry of Bobbie Gentry", is a good bet. A single disc with 23 cuts.

AllMusicGuide has some great info on her...

http://www.allmusic.com/album/chickasaw-county-child-the-artistry-of-bobbie-gentry-mw0000330430 (http://www.allmusic.com/album/chickasaw-county-child-the-artistry-of-bobbie-gentry-mw0000330430)

 Thanks for the info. The 2004 disc overview with "Ode to Billie Joe" era stuff what be nice. I recall reading about one of her other albums from that time in some "all-time essential albums" book, possibly by MOJO.

It was a long time ago, but "Ode to Billy Joe" was an absolute phenomenon -- probably only after Pepper/Beatles in terms of its impact that summer.  Every magazine, pundit, water cooler convo was dissecting its meaning -- particularly what had been thrown off the bridge.  And it is also testament to the beautiful diversity of what was then popular music -- in the top 40 you had a distinct  eerie curveball song like this next to the Beatles, Motown, Sinatra, Stones. James Brown...and even the Beach Boys still making the top ten (or close) with Heroes and Villains!  Those were different times....

My parents had that Gentry/Campbell album. Glen's wife apparently was a bit jealous of Gentry, insisted that they not be photographed together for the album. That's why it's two separate photos.

"Ode to Billie Joe" inspired Tony Joe White very much to write different kind of songs

That wouldn't surprise me at all about Glen Campbell's wife being jealous. Bobbie had an effect on many men she met, including her producer and arranger. Producer Kelly Gordon actually left his wife and kids for Bobbie, and arranger Jimmie Haskell dated Bobbie briefly when he and his wife were separated.

Very cool info on Tony Joe White. I have said for years that I would get a good Tony Joe compilation, but I haven't gotten around to it.

If you want a single disc, get this:
http://www.tonyjoewhite.com/the-best-of/


I'm not too keen on his recent stuff. This best of goes 'til 1973. There were some goodies afterwards but they are not included here.

Her songwriting was a sophisticated blend of bayou soul and country funk. I just love that gal.

Highly expressive singer, skilled acoustic guitarist, brilliant songwriter. Extremely intelligent, quite well-educated, savvy businesswoman. But the fact that she was, maybe still is, one of the foxiest chicks to ever walk this earth has tended to overshadow all that.  I guess between the lustful stares and the constant questions about what went off the bridge, one day she decided enough was enough.  Which I admire. May her years be many more and blessed.

In the meantime here's a trifecta for ya:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Kz3MXsqew

The Tony Joe white collection is now in my Amazon shopping cart. Many thanks...And it's actually going for $8.00 new, a real bargain.


RN57, that video of Bing Crosby, Tiny Tim, and Bobbie performing In The Cool, Cool Evening is unbelievable. I can't think of a stranger combination. That could very well be part of why Bobbie quit her career -- the lustful stares and the constant questions about what Billie Joe threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge. She basically quit recording after her 1971 album, the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful Patchwork, came out in 1971. She wrote every song on this loose concept LP. Later she did a few one-off singles through 1977 that sadly had no chart impact. However, she kept her Vegas/Tahoe gigs through the early '80s.


Bayou soul and country funk...if you don't mind SBonilla, I want to file your words away. It's a perfect description of Bobbie's music.

Love Bobbie Gentry, Glen Cambell, Tony Joe White. If you particauly like TJW, you should check out Dake Hawkin's incredible album LA, Memphis & Tyler Texas, if you don't know it already, for some speed-fuelled swamp rock!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Vad7FKJUA

Above, Bobbie Gentry wishes everyone, and especially those in uniform, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. It dates from around the time she used to go to Nam with Bob Hope.

By way of an Xmas present for you BG fans at the board,

http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/general_library/matinee/filmedinms1.htm

reproduces the first page of her handwritten lyrics to Ode To Billie Joe, which she donated to the University of Mississippi's library years ago.  It starts with a verse (plus a crossed-out line) that is not on the recorded version.  At some blog or other discussing the song, there's a comment from someone who says they traveled to Ole Miss and examined all the pages, and found a) that the original version of the song has no less than fourteen stanzas, and b) not one of them answers the questions of what BJ threw off the bridge or why he threw himself from it.

Which is not really surprising. Someplace else online, there's an interview with Herman Raucher, of Summer of '42 fame, who wrote the screenplay for Max Baer Jr's cinematic adaptation of the song.  Before Raucher started work on the script, Jethro had him talk to Bobbie. Naturally, he asked her the aforementioned two questions. Her answer each time was: "I don't know."  Raucher asked where the song had come from and she replied: "It's just something I made up."

Hope Ms Gentry and her loved ones have many more Merry Xmases and Happy New Years.

Very nice, thank you! Huge Bobbie fan.
Personally, I thought her and Billie were just throwing flowers off of the bridge, as she does at the end of the song. And considering the stifling nature of the life described in the song, the reason for Billie's suicide is plain. It is a Tennessee Williams-type scenario.

My dad used to talk about that song and her from time to time.  The way he explained it, when the song came out everybody (like said above) talked about it and it was really ground breaking, everybody assumed of course that a baby had been thrown off the bridge.  So he always used to say that he thought it was just disgraceful that she 'sold out' and when they filmed the movie, they threw a doll off the bridge.  Apparently he and everybody he knew thought the movie ruined the song and 'wrote her off'.  LOL

I've got 1 of her records.  I found it at a yard sale, get this: the record itself is missing, but her picture on the cover was so beautiful I just bought the record sleeve and kept it!

(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Bobbie-Gentry-Ode-To-Billie-Joe-Sealed-LP-Record-Album-/00/s/MTAwMFgxMDAw/$T2eC16RHJGkE9no8hmY(BQwZK3T9s!~~60_12.JPG)

Get the record itself, man.

It wasn't in it.  Just the sleeve. 

Well, the Ode To Billie Joe LP was reissued on vinyl on the Pure Pleasure label in 2010 - so it is possible to get a copy that ain't all scratched up.

Given that Bobbie Gentry, in terms of immediate sales, became Capitol's hottest-selling new artist in 1967, I wonder how they reacted to it back then. Have never seen her mentioned in an interview with the group or the guys individually.  Indeed, Glen Campbell rarely referred to his top-selling duets with her in interviews. I read his autobiography Rhinestone Cowboy years ago, and Bobbie was mentioned only in the discography in the back of the book.

Anyway, courtesy of Youtube, here's both sides of her recorded debut - on a single by Jody Reynolds of "Endless Sleep" fame, released on the Titan label in 1963.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Br2HBfvm1E "Stranger In The Mirror" has her just singing harmony. But

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Br2HBfvm1E - the flipside, "Ode To Love," has her singing lead on four lines - enough to establish that she had that utterly individual and startling vocal quality when she was nineteen.  It's hard to say why it took another four years for her to be recorded again. Interestingly, the track strongly anticipates the sound and mood of those Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra records later in the decade. Since Hazlewood had produced one or two of Reynolds's earlier 45s he may have heard this record back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ-ZrW69XSk

is also worth a look - Bobbie and Bobbie - Darin, that is, from a variety show in about '71, to judge from BG's coiffure. They duet in a medley of "Proud Mary," "Pork Salad Annie," "Never Ending Song Of Love," and a couple of other things. Darin has obvious trouble lipsynching but given that his face is about three inches from hers, I can understand the problem. Hard to move one's lips and gaze into those big brown eyes at the same time.

The OleMiss link to the original lyrics for Ode to Billie Joe is beyond impressive. I had never seen those before, so many thanks for posting, RN57.

I have always wanted to read Glen Campbell's recollections of working with Bobbie but have never found any interviews where he goes into much detail. If someone does, please post the link(s) on here.

The two songs recorded with Jody Reynolds are also available on iTunes/Amazon. I agree with your assessment that it is very surprising that it took an additional four years for Bobbie to gain major notice. Hopefully I will uncover more of what was happening in Bobbie's life/career during those years.

Well, Jeremy, glad you liked those links.  Don't know if you've seen this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUTpDvI0hR8

It's from a syndicated talk show which ran in '87 and '88, hosted by Wil Shriner (little remembered now, except for being the guy who took over from Letterman earlier in the decade when the latter left his morning show at NBC for Late Night).  The guest is Jim Stafford. He is asked about Bobbie. For pretty much the first and only time since their divorce, he talks about her, and gives a tongue-in-cheek but still quite telling explanation of why they split up.  Not only that, he talks about their son Tyler, whose photograph is shown briefly - he was 8 years old at the time. 

That was a wonderful link to the Jim Stafford interview. Hope he will eventually be comfortable talking about Bobbie on the record.

Earlier this week I finally got around to publishing my interview with Grammy-winning arranger Jimmie Haskell (worked with Rick Nelson, Elvis, hundreds of others)


Bobbie Gentry Had The Most Gorgeous Legs Ever: On The Record With Jimmie Haskell
http://www.examiner.com/article/bobbie-gentry-had-the-most-gorgeous-legs-ever-on-the-record-with-jimmie-haskell (http://www.examiner.com/article/bobbie-gentry-had-the-most-gorgeous-legs-ever-on-the-record-with-jimmie-haskell)


Here is what Haskell talks about...

Thanks for the link! Nice interview.
What did he do with Elvis? I can't connect the two of them....




Did you already have a chance to listen to it? I have to get the "Chickasaw country girl" CD soon. Looks very nice and I'll have more money soon that I can spend.
BTW here's TJW with "Mississippi delta". I don't know where that comes from. It's not on his albums afaik. Maybe an outtake or something, but it's great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxuABBaNoPY



EDIT:

While listening to some preview clips from "Chickasaw..." I was reminded that you might like some of Carl Perkins' country/after Sun Records stuff. Especially the songs posted below reminded me very much of some of Gentry's songs.

Recorded in '67 and '68

Lake County Cotton Country (live):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-LlXtHLrl0

Poor boy blues (Bob Luman had a hit with this, couldn't find Perkins' version on youtube):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNc_NoKiaU0

You can take the boy out of the country:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUiqAVQE4QY



Perkins was great at these kind of songs. There's much more to discover. All of the three above appear on the Bear Family CD "The Dollie Masters - Country boy's dream"

Rocker,

I feel kinda ashamed, but I haven't had a chance to hear Tony Joe White's album yet. But last night I was listening to Elvis sing For Ol' Times Sake and I've Got A Thing About You Baby from the July 1973 Stax sessions in Memphis. Two of my favorites. So I'm nearly there...

Jimmie Haskell played accordion on Elvis' GI Blues soundtrack in April 1960. The accordion song that sticks out is "Wooden Heart."

Thanks! Didn't know that!

Edited my other post, see above

Dusting off this thread because today, the 3rd of June, the Washington Post published an article by a reporter who spoke - or believes she spoke - with Bobbie Gentry for a few seconds recently:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/all-southerners-come-home--as-has-long-disappeared-music-legend-bobbie-gentry/2016/06/02/3988aba2-28df-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html

Of rather more interest is this interview from last April with Bobbie's ex Jim Stafford, in which, for the first time since the 1980s, he speaks about her...albeit in a rather specific context, not addressing the usual where is she now thing:

http://www.examiner.com/article/jim-stafford-breaks-silence-on-breathtaking-song-weaver-bobbie-gentry

Next month Bobbie turns 72.

I conducted the interview with Jim Stafford and am so grateful that you shared it here, RN57. I was unaware of the new Washington Post article about the ballsy reporter who may have actually spoken with Bobbie G. Again, thanks so much! Bobbie G never ceases to fascinate me........wonder if she has any round-about Beach Boys connections?

Well, as you probably know she and the Beach Boys have Glen Campbell in common; he collaborated with both in one form or another.
Her stuff was very, very good; my impression is that she was, or could have been a Joni Mitchell type (roughly speaking, and in terms of being an independent female singer-songwriter in control over what she wanted to do) but because of the socially conservative genre she worked in, and the era she worked in, and the expectations of the label, and all the usual stuff, that she was boxed in, and walked.  I have no idea though, and I too find her story interesting.  "Fancy" is an incredibly dark song which might have said something about how she felt about the music business and her role in it.  Or maybe not.

Sorry if I missed this somewhere here, but Ms Gentry shared a bill with the Boys on August 25 and 26, 1967 in Honolulu (the "Lei'd In Hawaii" shows).

Source: http://www.esquarterly.com/bellagio/gigs67.html   

Insightful commentary John K & JakeH and most welcome. All of the Beach Boys must have known Bobbie G at least in passing as they shared the concert bill in Honolulu--and possibly other dates--and were all on Capitol Records. Would like to learn more about the group's association with the raven-haired bombshell.

Depends on what day you ask me, but "Fancy" is my favorite Bobbie G tune....no idea why it failed to reach the Billboard Pop Top 30, stalling just shy at No. 31 after its November 22, 1969 chart debut. Nevertheless, it remained on the pop chart for 14 weeks, the same duration as "Ode to Billie Joe" [a No. 1 hit single for four weeks].

I convinced Universal producer Andrew Batt to go on the record with me and discuss all things pertaining to "The Girl from Chickasaw County — The Complete Capitol Masters," a chronologically sequenced 8-CD box set due out October 12. It contains all seven original Bobbie Gentry studio LP’s enhanced by over 75 unreleased recordings including a lost jazz album...


https://medium.com/@jeremylr/bobbie-gentrys-archivist-explores-colossal-girl-from-chickasaw-county-box-set-d54d316856fb (https://medium.com/@jeremylr/bobbie-gentrys-archivist-explores-colossal-girl-from-chickasaw-county-box-set-d54d316856fb)
Bobbie Gentry’s Archivist Explores Colossal ‘Girl from Chickasaw County’ Box Set

It's odd to me that guys rave about her legs - I never saw them! She was always in slacks or something.
Glen's duets with Bobbie were so successful, that later on, Capitol tried pairing him up with Anne Murray. They did an album together, but I don't recall it producing any hits.
And much later, of course, Glen sang with Tanya Tucker....