Bobbie’s Gentry’s real name
Bobbie Lee Gentry was born Roberta Lee Streeter on July 27, 1942, in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. Her parents divorced after Bobbie’s birth, and her maternal grandparents raised her on a farm without running water or electricity. Her birth mother moved to California. Bobbie’s grandmother noticed how much she liked the music, so she traded one of her milk cows for a neighbor’s piano. Bobbie had no real playmates as a child so her piano became her best friend. She began to play when she was three or four. Bobbie always played the black keys because the lady in the church still played the black keys. She later studied piano and learned churches wrote most hymns and gospel songs in minor keys.
In an interview with KRLA in August 1967, Bobbie Gentry said, “Life in the south is very different from Life in California. The church was important in our lives, in every Southerner’s Life. In the church, I learned my music; first in the choir, then in quartets and sextets.”
When she was 13, Bobbie Gentry moved to California with her mother, and in ensuing years she and her mother performed locally as Bobbie Myers and Ruby Gentry.
Stage Name
She took her stage name Bobbie Gentry after seeing the movie Ruby Gentry from 1952 starring Jennifer Jones and Charlton Heston. Plus, her mothers’ real name is Ruby.
After graduating from high school in 1960, she attended UCLA and studied philosophy. She later transferred to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, where she took Composition, Music Theory, and arranging classes. She also had a career for a short while modeling swimsuits.
Her first recordings
In 1964 She recorded two duets “Requiem for love” and “Stranger In The Mirror” with rockabilly singer Jody Reynolds.
Her big break
After that she continued to play nightclubs. During this time, she signed a deal with a publishing company that sent a demo tape of her song “Mississippi Delta” to Capitol Records.
A producer of the label was impressed but needed a B side. The A side had the chance of becoming a potential hit so Gentry offered another song with a Delta Feel “Ode To Billie Joe”. The B side won.
The Tallahatchie Bridge
“Ode To Billie Joe “ is a Southern Gothic fictional tale of Billie Joe McAlister who jumps off the Tallahatchie Bridge. The story is fiction and the bridge is real in Money Mississippi .The original collapsed in 1972.
This is the original which appeared in Life Magazine in 1967 as Bobbie walks across.
Here is The replacement
Choctaw Ridge in the song ,some maps show it is located in Webster County Mississippi.
The song’s meaning is where people have different opinions. According to Gentry from an interview in 1967, she says ” it shows how little people care about other people. They discuss this horrible tragedy and ask for more food.”
What was he throwing off the bridge?
Gentry says she doesn’t know exactly but it’s not important. Since the girl ended the relation on the bridge, maybe it was a token of their relationship she threw off the bridge. She goes on to say it wasn’t a person, and she didn’t push him.
Does he die?
Gentry says only the preacher knows for sure what happened, that the girl was with Billie Joe. The song never says for sure Billie Joe is dead, only that he jumped. It isn’t necessarily suicide, and it certainly isn’t murder. Billie Joe was alone when he jumped.
Her year for the Grammy
In 1967 Gentry won the Best New Artist Grammy. The song also won best vocal performance Female; Best Arrangement Accompanying A Vocalist Or Instrumentalist; and Best Contemporary Female Solo Vocal Performance.
Bobbie Gentry recorded seven critically acclaimed albums, but the songstress sadly could not top “Ode To Billie Joe.”
Glen Campbell
In October 1968, Glen Campbell entered the picture. He and Bobbie record a duet album “Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell”. The album featured two outstanding covers of “Let It Be Me” and “All I Have To do is dream” climbing to No. 11 on the charts.
No country bumpkin
Her close friend and personal assistant, Miriam Werner, said when Bobbie walked out on stage, she wore tight jeans with one button, barefoot with a little midriff blouse that tied up under her chest. Her look with long hair and dark eyes gave the impression of a Daisy Mae.
Her music gave you the impression she was grounded in the Mississippi Delta but she was nobody’s country bumpkin. She was involved in her stage show in every way from designing costumes to working with the dancers to improve their dance steps. She was very smart and a savvy business woman.
Bobbie the businesswoman
In 1968 she invested $50,000 in The NBA Team The Phoenix Suns and was a co- owner for 20 years.
In 1969 Bobbie Gentry flew to Muscle Shoals Alabama to record her sixth studio album “Fancy”, with studio mastermind Rick Hall. “Fancy” was released as a single and was a mediocre hit only climbing to No. 31 on the BILLBOARD Hot 100 charts.
Reba remakes “Fancy”
But Reba McEntire gave it a new life. She recorded her version in 1990 and has been performing it at every single concert. Her version of “Fancy” almost didn’t happen. Her producer Jimmy Bowen thought it might affect her reputation. He told her “Oh no, you don’t need to be singing about a prostitute”. Now Reba calls it her biggest hit, plus I would imagine no complaints from Bobbie Gentry about the royalty checks. Reba has never met Bobbie Gentry. She has talked to people who worked with Gentry and still communicate. She has told them she would love to meet her, but Bobbie Gentry is a mystery woman.
“Ode To Billie Joe” the movie
In the summer of 1976 Max Baer who played “Jethro” on the popular sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies produced and directed an independent film based on Gentry’s biggest hit.
“Ode To Billy Joe” (note the different spelling) was a surprise box office hit. It was made for $1.1 million dollars and and took in more than $30 milllion worldwide with 10% of the gross going to Gentry.
Bobbie moves on
After not having commercial success, in 1978 Gentry and Capitol parted ways.
She continued to deliver her wildly energy driven shows in Vegas, Canada and The UK.
She also made appearances on television network shows with Bobby Darin, Johnny Cash, and Ed Sullivan.
Bobbie disappears
On April 29,1982, Bobbie Gentry appeared at the 17th Annual Academy Of Country Music Awards and quietly retreated to a private life in Savannah with her only child Tyler whose father is her third and final husband, singer songwriter of “Spiders And Snakes” Jim Stafford.
Bobbie Gentry-1982
Jimmie Haskell producer/arranger who has worked with Ricky Nelson, Lou Rawls, Glen Campbell and many others, arranged the strings on “Ode To Billie Joe”. Haskell says in the late 90’s Ms. Gentry seemed like she wanted to resume her career.
She called Haskell out of the blue and wanted him to listen to a new song she had written and wanted a lead sheet (a form of musical notation that specifies the Melody, Lyrics and Harmony). Gentry wanted to work with him, but he told her he was busy working on two different projects and suggested a copyist help her with a lead sheet. She never contacted the person he recommended, and she hasn’t spoken to him since. Mr. Haskell died in February 2016.
What she looks like today
Bobbie Gentry grants no interviews, is rarely seen in public, and cuts off all communication with music industry friends and non-immediate family.
While she fought hard for her privacy and won for 37 years, it appears that Gentry came out of hiding for at least one event in 2014 – and this recently revealed photo shows what Gentry looks like after all this time. She is with a brother or cousin who share her surname Streeter. Still beautiful. The picture taken was when she was 72. She is now 78.
Where is Bobbie Gentry now ?
A Recent story suggests she lives in Memphis, about a couple of hours from the Tallahatchie Bridge that she made famous with her hit song. According to Washington Post reporter Neely Tucker real estate agents confirmed it.
A phone number was given to Tucker. He called. The female voice on the other end says “hello”. Tucker introduced himself and his newspaper. He said he was looking for the person whose name appears on the property owner’s record. There was silence for several seconds. The voice says “There’s no one here by that name”. Tucker apologized and read the number back to make sure she had dialed it correctly and she hung up.
Neely Tucker believes he talked to Bobbie Gentry for about 13 seconds.
Bobbie Gentry pulled off something not many people can do, which is the perfect disappearing act. She was everywhere in the sixties and early seventies then when she decided it was time to go, she left.
“Ode To Billie Joe” knocked The Beatles “All You Need Is Love” out of the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts in August 1967.
