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Happy Birthday, Bobbie Gentry: A Talented Lady Who Crossed a Big Bridge

"It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day…" I sing in the car. This is about as far as I get before my sweet hubby groans, "Okay, THAT'S enough." He knows what's coming next: the entire five verses of Bobbie Gentry's 1967 Southern gothic hit, "Ode to Billie Joe." Yep, I've known the lyrics to that moody little song frontwards and backwards since my Daddy first brought home the single in July 1967.

The simple, bluesy ballad describes a young man named Billie Joe McAllister, who mysteriously jumps off the Tallahatchie Bridge on the Choctaw Ridge one hot summer day. The incident is shrouded in mystery. It seems that earlier in the day, Billie Joe and a female companion were spotted throwing something off the bridge. Speculation about the song's details abounded for months, even years, after its release. Exactly what did the pair throw off the bridge: a baby, a wedding ring, a draft card, drugs? Why did Billie Joe jump? Was he caught in a homosexual act? Was he a jilted lover? Had he committed a crime? The only person who knows for sure is Bobbie Gentry herself. The sultry-voiced artist has the distinction of being one of the first female country singer/guitarists to write and produce her own material. It was a big bridge to cross in the 1960s, when revolution was in the air, but women's liberation was still a decade away. The beautiful, raven-haired Bobbie turned 68 years old on July 27, and I want to thank her for inspiring me at a young age to write about my life and my observations.

"Ode to Billie Joe" is very visual in its setup: a cotton-belt family sits around the dinner table at the end of a long day. Mama, who's been cooking all morning, breaks the news about Billie Joe to Papa, Brother, and the narrator. Mundane family talk is interspersed with casual recollections of Billie Joe and bewilderment over his death. Papa announces that he has five more acres in the lower forty to plow. Mama tells her kin that the nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, will join them for dinner on Sunday. Brother recalls playing childhood pranks with Billie Joe, then asks for another piece of apple pie. All the while, the narrator remains silent and shaken by the news of Billie Joe, unable to eat Mama's dinner of black-eyed peas and biscuits. As the years go by, she will frequent the Choctaw Ridge to drop flowers into the muddy waters off the Tallahatchie Bridge. I was seven years old when I first heard this song, and I'm still moved by its imagery, its mystery and its haunting sound.

"Ode to Billie Joe" sold over 3 million copies worldwide. It was a number one hit in the U.S., placed fourth in the Billboard year-end chart of 1967, and received eight Grammy nominations. Bobbie Gentry won Grammy awards for both Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The song also garnered a Grammy for arranger Jimmie Haskell. Rolling Stone magazine has ranked it #412 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song's popularity endured well into the '70s, when Warner Brothers Studios adapted it into a movie in 1976.

Bobbie Gentry placed 11 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, released half a dozen albums and spent several years as a successful performer on the Las Vegas Strip. She abandoned the music business in the late 1970s and has lived a private life in Los Angeles ever since. Her career was relatively short, but her contributions should never be forgotten. Today let's wish a very happy birthday to Bobbie, a multi-talented woman who scored an unlikely hit -- an eerie little ode that truly stood out among the psychedelic sounds of that crazy Summer of Love.

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Tags: billie, bobbie, gentry, joe, ode, to

Comment by Paul Wilner on July 31, 2012 at 4:06pm: I believe (according to the internet, so who knows if it's true) that Dylan's Clothes Line Saga was written as a sort of response to Billie Joe. Some said (from the usual unreliable sources) that it was a parody, but I prefer to think of it as an homage, as Fourth Time Around was to Norwegian Wood. Sounds like Mr. Dickey was acting like his name...

Comment by Al Maginnes on July 31, 2012 at 4:09pm: Dickey liked to push people's buttons. Fifteen years after his death, it looks like he's still managing to do that (although I disagree with him--I think this is one of the greatest songs ever written).

Comment by Paul Wilner on July 31, 2012 at 4:17pm: Yah, he was a great writer; I think it's just a dumb observation. I believe the Dead riffed off him, too..."buckdancer's choice'' and all that...

Comment by Darren Smalls on July 31, 2012 at 5:17pm: ...it's funny how articles on Bobby Gentry have been appearing with steady regularity for the past five or six years, and yet none of them have any new information.

Before he died, the late great Jim Ford claimed he wrote this song and, honestly, I believe him. It has more of the southern gothic mystery and yearning that he cultivated so masterfully in his own music, and that never seemed to reappear in quite the same way in any of Gentry's subsequent (and great) material..."Fancy" comes close, though...

Comment by Al Maginnes on August 1, 2012 at 11:47am: Paul, it would be cool to think of Hunter reading Dickey (and for all I know he did), but I think "buckdancer's choice" was an old expression before either DIckey or Hunter made use of it.

Comment by Paul Wilner on August 1, 2012 at 12:00pm: Prolly so, it just came to mind because Hunter is an educated poetry fan (he's translated Rilke, of all people). Fortuitous phrase, regardless....

Comment by Vintelemon on August 15, 2012 at 7:17am: Didn't Jill Sobule finally answer this question with her song, "Where is Bobby Gentry?" from her California Years recording? ;)

Comment by Daniel R. Drown on November 4, 2012 at 2:25pm: Please folks lets end the sexist rumor that Jim Ford wrote O.T.B.J. Nick Lowe spread this vicious lie on N.P.R radio in 2007. The song is a swarm of many autobiographical elements of Bobbie's life. The Tallahatchee Bridge and Choctaw Ridge are real places from HER childhood. Bobbie kept and donated her rough drafts of the song to The Un. Of Mississippi in the early 1970's.Displayed in The Faulkner Room,they show her creative process and even missing verses edited out of the original sessions. Nick Lowe has a linernote quote about his idol, Jim Ford. "Jim told a lot of tall tales and was know to stretch the truth a bit" Bobbie wrote almost 100 songs 1967-1978. Besides' Fancy' also attaining immortality, her lush composition 'Mornin' Glory' was recorded by master jazz pianist Bill Evans on his important Live In Toyko album. Bill played the song as his opening number in hundreds of concerts before his untimely death. Indeed Bobbie had the good fortune of having many of her songs covered by other recording artists.

Comment by Daniel R. Drown on November 4, 2012 at 10:53pm: Bob Dylans Answer to Ode: 'Clothsline Saga' was indeed a parody. Dylan(who once wrote there was not a single major female poet in the entire English language) hated the song. Dylan was known to be sarcastic and vile at times.He took delight in telling the great Phil Ochs that his protest songwriting was irrelevant. Phil never got over it on some level. Bobbie let the jab roll off her back, simply stating Dylan was "entitled to his opinion" She let the numbers do the talking. O.T.B.J has over 100 covers and 50 million in record sales. Counting the film adaptation, the song has generated over 100 million in revenue.

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