In August 1967, Lyndon Johnson announced that he was sending 45,000 more troops to Vietnam. Black power advocate Stokely Carmichael called for violent revolution in the streets. Beatles manager Brian Epstein died from an overdose of sleeping pills. But around water coolers, the hot topic was what Billie Joe McAllister and his girlfriend threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
The mystery created by Bobbie Gentry in her debut single “Ode To Billie Joe” cast a spell over the entire country. Set to a backing of spare acoustic guitar chords and atmospheric strings, Gentry’s sensual, Southern-fried voice relates the story of two Mississippi teenage lovers who share a dark secret that eventually leads to the boy’s suicide. And over 40 years later, despite cinematic details in the song’s lyric, we still don’t know exactly what happened up there on Choctaw Ridge.
Bobbie Gentry was born Roberta Lee Streeter on July 27, 1944 in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. In the few interviews that she gave, Gentry touched briefly on her rural upbringing, saying, “We didn’t have electricity, and I didn’t have many playthings.”
She did have music though. From the gospel sounds of the local Baptist church to old folk songs, Bobbie was fascinated. “My grandmother noticed how much I liked music, so she traded one of her milk cows for a neighbor’s piano,” Gentry said. Taking to the instrument immediately, she wrote her first song at age 7, a ditty called “My Dog Sergeant is a Good Dog.” After her parents divorced, 13-year-old Bobbie moved to Palm Springs, Calif. with her mother, who quickly remarried. With the family’s improved fortunes, Bobbie taught herself guitar, banjo, bass and vibes. As a teenager, she started playing gigs at a local country club, taking her stage name from Ruby Gentry, a movie about a poor, rurual seductress.
After graduating high school, Bobbie, by then a raven-haired beauty, went to Vegas, where she worked in a Folies Bergere–style review, dancing and singing. In the mid-’60s, she moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA, finally landing at the Conservatory of Music, where she studied composition and arranging. A demo tape she made ended up on the desk of Capitol Records A&R man Kelly Gordon.
“Ode” was recorded on July 10, 1967 at Studio C in the Capitol tower. Accompanying herself on guitar, Bobbie nailed a keeper take in 40 minutes. Arranger Jimmie Haskell told MOJO, “I asked Kelly, ‘What do you want me to do?’ He said, ‘Just put some strings on it so we won’t be embarrassed. No one will ever hear it anyway.’ The song sounded to me like a movie—those wonderful lyrics. I had a small group of strings—two cellos and four violins to fit her guitar-playing. I was branching out in my own head for the first time, creating something that I liked because we thought no one was ever gonna hear it.”
The finished version of “Ode” was over seven minutes long. Capitol edited it down to a more manageable four minutes and stuck it on the flip side of “Mississippi Delta.” But those were the days when DJs still had minds of their own, and as in the stories of so many classic hits, the B-side became the A-side.
It sounded like nothing else on the radio, Gentry’s husky voice inviting listeners into a world that was as dark and exotic as a Flannery O’Connor story. Not long after the song’s debut, the water cooler talk started.
As Gentry told Fred Bronson, “The song is sort of a study in unconscious cruelty. But everybody seems more concerned with what was thrown off the bridge than they are with the thoughtlessness of the people expressed in the song. What was thrown off the bridge really isn’t that important.
“Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridge—flowers, a ring, even a baby. Anyone who hears the song can think what they want, but the real message of the song, if there must be a message, revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking, without even realizing that Billie Joe’s girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family.”
In its first week of release, “Ode” sold 750,000 copies, knocking “All You Need Is Love” out of the top spot on the Billboard chart. It stayed there for four weeks. The song won Gentry three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist (she was the first Country artist to ever win in this category).
The enigma of her best-known song is nothing compared to that of Bobbie Gentry herself. In the early ’70s, she was riding high—headlining in Vegas, duetting with Glen Campbell on several hits, hosting her own TV series. Then around 1975, after contributing music to a movie based on “Ode,” she simply checked out. She has not been heard from in over 35 years. All requests for interviews, recordings and performances have been denied. She is said to be living in the Los Angeles area.
— By Bill DeMain
From Performing Songwriter Issue 87
I love all her songs. I was so in love
bobby I was only 12 when that song came out And then I work at a movie house and I show the movie at theater and fell in love with her all over again and I’m still in Love with that Pretty lady!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really like Bobbie Gentry. I wish her health, friends and appeasement. I think that those who loves music, become better and kinder. Thank her for her talent. Evgeny. Russia. Samara.
I saw Bobbie Gentry in the 70s in Las Vegas. The show was called Diamonds and Demin. She came from beneath the stage on some type of lift and she was stunning! I still can remember the electricity of the show and when the lights came up I think every woman in the auditorium felt somewhat lacking! What an amazing talent.
[...] She recorded Ode … in 40 minutes on July 10, 1967, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Arranger Jimmie Haskell put two cellos and four violins behind her to fit her guitar playing. Ode … was the B side of the record with Mississippi Delta on the A side. Fortunately, the DJs felt otherwise and played the B side more. Ode sold 750,000 copies in its first week and knocked The Beatles All You Need is Love out of the Number one spot, according to Performing Songwriter. [...]
Kelly Gordon died decades ago from cancer. It was written that Bobbie cared for him in her guest house for the last year of this life.
can anyone direct me to or give me detailed information on Capitol Records A&R man and OTBJ producer KELLY GORDON? I know he and BG had a thing for a few years, and wrote, performed together too. He supposedly went to school and his family lived for a while in my hometown in KY. I work at the local history museum and we are looking for information about him and his life and death. Thanks!
One of my all-time favorite songs, the pictures in the songs, I could always visualize that family sitting around the table having dinner, those two kids on a ridge. The entire song paints pictures in my mind – I adapted to scenes I knew in my life growing up in West Virginia.
What would it take and how could they release that 7 minute version of the song??
THANKS for the inspiring article!
Doak
She was also married to Jim Stafford who had the One-hit wonder song “I don’t like spiders and snakes” they were married from 1978-79.
[...] that’s the difference between good writing and bad writing right there.Gentry once said that the song is “sort of a study in unconscious cruelty.” The family talks idly about [...]
I’ve been tracing the huge money trail of Bobbie Gentry’s O.T.B.J and was surprised to learn of its importance in the foundation of rap and hiphop music. Master blues musican Lou Donaldson was one of many who recorded an instrumental version of the song in 1967. His musical ‘break’ in the performance is considered by many as the pioneering ‘break’ in rap and hiphop. Some of the artists who have sampled the musical movement include Mary J.Blidge, Cyprus Hill,Kanye West, Jay Zee,Timberland, Madonna and over 80 other recording artists. If anyone is interested in listening to his soulful musical interpretation ,it is posted on YouTube.
It was the song that seemed to never stop playing in Mississippi after it came out. People probably forget that writer and director Max Baer (who played Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies) brought the song to the silver screen in 1976. Even then, what was thrown was just a writer’s best guess. They held the opening at the Paramount Theater in Jackson, Miss., where Ms. Gentry, along with the two co-stars, Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor, attended. Nice to remember it again.
What I love about Bill DeMain’s piece is that great reminder of the song’s true power, as express by Ms. Gentry herself, is in the “unconscious cruelty” of others. We think of this as a classic story song, but there’s so much life between the lines.
I’ve heard that the mystery around what was thrown of the bridge is actually explained by the verses that were cut by Capitol to reduce the length of the track to 4 minutes. And I’ve heard she’s going to her grave with the answer.
But “Ode to Billy Joe” was the first 45 I ever bought, I’ve played it at gigs probably 100 times, and covered it on my first CD (stream away right here: http://www.jeansynodinos.com/lucky_2003). Such is its power over me.
Bobbie Gentry did not ‘check out’ in 1975. 1976 was a huge year for her. The film adaptation of Ode Billie Joe earned a whopping 50 million at the box office on a 1 million dollar budget. Gentry’s lucrative contract with Warner Brothers gave her a 10% ownership stake in the film. She sold 350,000 records that year too with the single re-issue and album soundtrack. She would hold down mult-million dollar contracts at Howard Hughes casinos for the rest of the decade with lavish performances at The Frontier’ and ‘The Desert Inn’. She turned down an extension on her contract in 1980 to devote herself to her newborn son. Her last television performance was in May , 1981 on an N.B.C mothers day special hosted by Ed McMahon. She sang the broadway song, Mama A Rainbow’ to her own mother ,Ruby, in the audience.
There was far more to Bobbie Gentry than her massive debut(which has sold near 50 million records on a 100+ covers). Her composition, Fancy, has also become a classic thanks in large part to being included on 4 Reba McEntire cd’s with 20 million in sales. The song also has a dozen other covers. Jazz master pianist, Bill Evans, turned her composition’Mornin’ Glory’ into the signature song of his last years. It was the opening track on his historic’Live In Toyko’ concert and album and was said to be one of his all time favorites.
[...] The story behind “Ode to Billie Joe.” [...]