| Bobbie Gentry | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Roberta Lee Streeter |
| Born | July 27, 1944 |
| Origin | Chickasaw County, Mississippi, United States |
| Genres | Country, pop, soul |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar |
| Years active | 1964–1978 |
| Labels | Capitol |
| Associated acts | Glen Campbell |
Roberta Lee Streeter (born July 27, 1944), professionally known as Bobbie Gentry, is a former American singer-songwriter notable as one of the first female country artists to compose and produce her own material.[1] Her songs typically drew on her Mississippi roots to compose vignettes of the Southern United States.
Gentry shot to international fame with her intriguing Southern Gothic narrative "Ode to Billie Joe" in 1967. The track was fourth in the Billboard year-end chart of 1967[2] and earned her Grammy awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1968. Gentry charted eleven singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and four singles on the United Kingdom Top 40.[3] Her album Fancy brought her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. After her first albums, she had a successful run of variety shows on the Las Vegas Strip. She lost interest in performing in the late 1970s and has since lived privately in Los Angeles.
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Gentry was born Roberta Streeter and is of English and Portuguese ancestry. She was born in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, to Robert and Ruby (Bullington) Streeter. She has an older brother, Robert Streeter, Jr. Her parents divorced shortly after her birth, and her mother moved to California. She was raised on her grandparents' farm in Chickasaw County. Her grandmother traded one of the family's milk cows for a neighbor's piano, and seven-year-old Bobbie composed her first song, "My Dog Sergeant Is a Good Dog". She attended school in Greenwood, Mississippi, and began teaching herself to play the guitar, bass, banjo, and vibes.
At 13, she moved to Arcadia, California, to live with her mother. Gentry graduated from Palm Valley School in 1962. She chose her stage name from the 1952 film Ruby Gentry about a heroine born into poverty but determined to make a success of her life and began performing at local country clubs. Encouraged by Bob Hope, she performed in a revue at Les Folies Bergeres nightclub of Las Vegas.
Gentry then moved to Los Angeles to enter UCLA as a philosophy major. She supported herself in clerical jobs, occasionally performing at nightclubs. She later transferred to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to develop her composition and performing skills. In 1964, she made her recording debut in two duets – "Ode to Love" and "Stranger in the Mirror" with rockabilly singer Jody Reynolds. She continued performing in nightclubs until Capitol Records executive Kelly Gordon heard a demo she had recorded in 1967.
In 1967, Gentry produced her first single, the country rock "Mississippi Delta"; however, it was the flipside, "Ode to Billie Joe" with its sparse sound and controversial lyrics that started to receive airplay in the U.S.[4] Capitol's shortened version added to the song's mystery. Questions arose among the listeners: what did Billie Joe and his girlfriend throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge, and why did Billie Joe commit suicide? Gentry herself has commented on the song, saying that its real theme was indifference:[5]
| “ | Those questions are of secondary importance in my mind. The story of Billie Joe has two more interesting underlying themes. First, the illustration of a group of people's reactions to the life and death of Billie Joe, and its subsequent effect on their lives, is made. Second, the obvious gap between the girl and her mother is shown when both women experience a common loss (first, Billie Joe and, later, Papa), and yet Mama and the girl are unable to recognize their mutual loss or share their grief. | ” |
The track topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in August 1967 and placed #4 in the year-end chart.[2] The single hit #8 on Billboard Black Singles and #13 in the UK Top 40[3] and sold over three million copies all over the world.[1] Rolling Stone magazine listed it among the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2001.
The LP replaced Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at the top of U.S. charts. It also reached #5 of the Billboard Black Albums charts. Gentry won three Grammy Awards in 1967, including Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She was also named the Academy of Country Music's Best New Female Vocalist.
In February 1968, Gentry took part in the Italian Song Festival in Sanremo, as one of two performers (alongside Al Bano) of the song "La siepe" by Vito Pallavicini and Massara. In a competition of 24 songs, the entry qualified to the final 14 and eventually placed ninth.[6]
Bobbie Gentry's second album, The Delta Sweete, released in 1968, did not match the success of her first. It yielded a Billboard top-sixty hit "Okolona River Bottom Band". She also collaborated on the album Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell, which earned a gold record certificate. Gentry made numerous guest appearances on TV shows hosted by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Andy Williams, Carol Burnett and Bobby Darin. Among them was her performance of the Cajun number "Niki Hoeky" on The Summer Smothers Brothers Show.[7][8] In 1969, she released Touch 'Em with Love, her most critically acclaimed album, which gave her a number-one hit in the UK with "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. In January 1970, it became a number-six hit on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for Dionne Warwick. Gentry hosted her own series on BBC-TV in London, which was later widely shown in Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and elsewhere.
In 1970, she received recognition for her composition "Fancy", which rose to #26 on the U.S. Country charts and #31 on the pop charts.[1] Gentry's personal view on the song:[9]
| “ | "Fancy" is my strongest statement for women's lib, if you really listen to it. I agree wholeheartedly with that movement and all the serious issues that they stand for — equality, equal pay, day care centers, and abortion rights. | ” |
The album, as was the case with the rest of her post-"Ode to Billie Joe" recordings, had little commercial success. However, it brought Gentry an Academy of Country Music Award and a Grammy nomination, both in the category of Best Female Vocalist.[10]
Gentry continued to write and perform, touring Europe, generating a significant fan base in the United Kingdom. She signed a million-dollar contract to headline in her own $150,000 nightclub revue in Las Vegas for which she produced, choreographed, and wrote and arranged the music. She said,[5]
| “ | I write and arrange all the music, design the costumes, do the choreography, the whole thing. I'm completely responsible for it. It's totally my own from inception to performance. I originally produced "Ode To Billie Joe" and most of my other records, but a woman doesn't stand much chance in a recording studio. A staff producer's name was nearly always put on the records. | ” |
In 1974, Gentry hosted a short-lived summer replacement variety show, The Bobbie Gentry Happiness Hour, on CBS. The show, which was her version of Campbell's hit series The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, also on CBS, was not renewed for a full season. That same year, Gentry wrote and performed "Another Place, Another Time" for writer-director Max Baer, Jr.'s film, Macon County Line. In 1976, Baer directed the feature film Ode to Billy Joe, which was based on her hit song [11] and starred 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. 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 behind-the-scenes work in television production failed to hold her interest. After a 1978 single for Warner Bros. Records, "He Did Me Wrong, But He Did It Right" failed to chart, Gentry decided to retire from show business. Her last public appearances as a performer were on Christmas Night 1978 as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and on 10 May 1981 on All-Star Salute to Mother's Day.[12] After that, she settled in Los Angeles and remained out of the public eye.[1]
Gentry has been married three times. Her first marriage was to casino magnate Bill Harrah in 1969 and lasted only weeks. She married singer and comedian Jim Stafford on October 15, 1975; they divorced a few years later after the birth of their son Tyler. She has since remarried.[13]
In the hectic atmosphere of 1967, Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" stood out with its simplicity and integrity.[14] Gentry is one of the first female country artists to write and produce her own material.[1] Typically her songs have autobiographic characteristics.[14]
Bobbie Gentry charted 11 singles in Billboard Hot 100[1] and four singles in the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart.[3] Beth Orton recorded a song entitled "Bobby Gentry" featured on her The Other Side of Daybreak album. Similarly, Jill Sobule recorded "Where Is Bobbie Gentry?" for her album California Years. Gentry's 1969 composition "Fancy" provided a top-ten country hit for Reba McEntire, who covered the song in 1991.
Producer and singer Joe Henry, in a 2011 interview, cited "Ode" as "an incredibly deft bit of writing in the way that that story is unfolded. ... [I]t places the character in a moment, and then the story just starts to unfold around it", and was a song that influenced him early in his life listening to music on the radio.[15]
| Year | Album | Peak chart positions[1] | Certifications (sales thresholds) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country | US | CAN | UK[16] | |||
| 1967 | Ode to Billie Joe
|
1 | 1 | — | — |
|
| 1968 | The Delta Sweete
|
— | 132 | — | — | |
Local Gentry
|
— | — | — | — | ||
Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell (with Glen Campbell)
|
1 | 11 | 8 | — |
|
|
Way Down South
|
— | — | — | — | ||
| 1969 | Touch 'Em with Love
|
42 | 164 | — | 21 | |
Greatest
|
— | 180 | — | — | ||
| 1970 | Fancy
|
34 | 96 | 79 | — | |
I'll Never Fall In Love Again
|
— | — | — | — | ||
Bobbie Gentry Portrait
|
— | — | — | — | ||
| 1971 | Patchwork
|
— | 221 | — | — | |
Sittin' Pretty
|
— | — | — | — | ||
Tobacco Road
|
— | — | — | — | ||
Your No 1 Fan
|
— | — | — | — | ||
| 1983 | All I have to do is Dream (with Glen Campbell)
|
— | — | — | — | |
| 1990 | Bobbie Gentry's Greatest Hits
|
— | — | — | — | |
| 1994 | The Best of Bobbie Gentry
|
— | — | — | — | |
| 1995 | Bobbie Gentry - The Hit Albums
|
— | — | — | — | |
| 1998 | The Golden Classics of Bobbie Gentry
|
— | — | — | — | |
| 2000 | The Capitol Years: Ode to Bobbie Gentry
|
— | — | — | — | |
| 2002 | An American Quilt 1967-1974
|
— | — | — | — | |
| Year | Single | Chart Positions | Album | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country | US | US AC | CAN Country | CAN | CAN AC | UK[16] | |||
| 1963 | "Requiem For Love" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 1967 | "Ode to Billie Joe" | 17 | 1 | 7 | — | — | — | 13 | Ode to Billie Joe |
| "I Saw An Angel Die" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "Okolona River Bottom Band" | — | 54 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1968 | "Louisiana Man" | 72 | 100 | — | — | — | — | — | The Delta Sweete |
| "Hushabye Mountain" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "Morning Glory" (with Glen Campbell) | — | 74 | 32 | — | 81 | — | — | Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell | |
| 1969 | "Let It Be Me" (with Glen Campbell) | 14 | 36 | 7 | 1 | 85 | 15 | — | |
| "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" | — | — | — | — | — | — | 1 | Touch 'Em with Love | |
| "Casket Vignette" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1970 | "All I Have to Do Is Dream" (with Glen Campbell) | 6 | 27 | 4 | 2 | 36 | 3 | 3 | Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell |
| "Fancy" | 26 | 31 | 8 | 1 | 26 | 20 | — | Fancy | |
| "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" | — | — | — | — | — | — | 40 | ||
| "He Made a Woman Out of Me" | — | 71 | — | — | 57 | — | — | ||
| "Apartment 21" | — | 81 | 19 | — | 68 | — | — | ||
| 1971 | "But I Can't Get Back" | — | — | 37 | — | 93 | — | — | Patchwork |
| 1972 | "Girl From Cincinnati" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 1976 | "Another Time, Another Place" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Ode to Billie Joe" (re-recording) | — | 65 | — | — | 92 | 46 | — | Greatest Hits | |
| 1978 | "He Did Me Wrong But He Did It Right" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Year | B-Side | Chart Positions | Original A-Side | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country | US | |||
| 1968 | "Less of Me" (with Glen Campbell) | 44 | — | "Morning Glory" |
| 1969 | "Touch 'Em with Love" | — | 113 | "Casket Vignette" |