Titled Ode to Billie Joe, the album was a worldwide smash, remaining on the pop charts for 30 weeks. Although she was finally given a production credit on it (something artists didn’t usually get, even if they had produced or co-produced), the album didn’t sell, despite being her most cohesive set of songs. He admits he can relate to her show business exit, although his break from the industry didn’t last nearly as long. 1 hit in 1969. It didn’t hurt that she was stylish (all her clothes were her own designs) and very attractive, with piled-up raven hair and saucy brown eyes. She never contacted the person I recommended, and she hasn’t spoken to me since. “After we went out to lunch, I wanted to see Bobbie again. And she popped up all over television, guest starring on network specials with Bobby Darin, Johnny Cash, and Ed Sullivan. For new articles sent weekly to your inbox, email jeremylr@windstream.net and mention which story led you my way. She certainly didn’t have a support group like Dusty [Springfield].”, It’s difficult when a woman is attractive; beauty is supposed to negate intelligence – which is ridiculous, Swamp rock singer Tony Joe White (Rainy Night in Georgia, Polk Salad Annie) never had any doubts about Bobbie Gentry’s talent – he credits her with turning him into a songwriter: “I hadn’t started writing yet. It was Bobbie Gentry’s version that took off and went to number one becoming the antepenultimate chart-topper of the 1960s just before Rolf’s Two Little Boys saw the decade out! “When Bobbie walked out onstage, she wore tight blue jeans that were unbuttoned maybe one button,” said Weiner. In the meantime, the Mississippi-bred girl continued to deliver her wildly successful live act to packed houses, mainly in Las Vegas, Canada and the UK. Her long, flowing dark hair and dark eyes gave her the appearance of a ‘Daisy Mae.’”, “Bobbie’s image had to do with the songs and their content. Going into the Top Ten on the country chart, McEntire’s version became one of her signature songs. While Gentry received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Reba McEntire actually experienced more chart success with her cover version of the song 21 years later on MCA. I called her two or three or four times. Her mama’s questionable motives — “Here’s your one chance Fancy, don’t let me down” — encouraged Fancy to take up prostitution in order to provide a better life for her family. The track spent four weeks at No. “I don’t know,” Stafford cagily insists.
The only thing I would really like to say is some people just see Bobbie as this girl from the Mississippi backwoods or delta, but she was brilliant when it came to writing and her creative self. Bobbie Gentry fans can discuss her career, music, and share related memories, information, memorabilia. Sheila B, a DJ at WFMU in New York, says that Gentry’s “songs and style were difficult to pin down”. Bobbie Gentry entered the UK singles chart with the song the following month, on August 30, and enjoyed one of her 19 weeks there at number one. In the late ’90s Gentry seemed poised to resume her recording career.
Six critically acclaimed studio albums followed Billie Joe, but it was sadly difficult for the songstress to top her rookie effort. You should take a rest after that and not go back into the Broadway show environment out on the road!”. That’s where Hal’s line came from, ‘what do you do when you kiss a girl, you get enough germs to catch pneumonia, after you do she’ll never phone ya.’ So, having been in the hospital for five days with pneumonia, I got out and struggled to write that song feeling not too great.
She could write, produce, design sets and costumes – she could pretty much do everything – and she liked to work alone. Shattered by the commercial reception of Patchwork, perhaps the studio album closest to her heart, Gentry virtually abandoned the recording studio and eventually parted ways with Capitol. As a teenager Gentry had escaped the world of warm southern manners and cold etiquette that gave her so much inspiration for her earliest songs. “She was barefoot, with a little midriff blouse that was tied up under her chest. “Reba’s record was all country and all guitar, had no horns on it, no sound effects, and didn’t create any kind of a mood. Max Baer, Jr., who played “Jethro” on the popular sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, produced and directed an independent film based on Gentry’s greatest recording. ******************DON’T GO ANYWHERE YET!********************. There’s a song about a laughing woman burying her fiance (Casket Vignette), a song about a woman trapped in a mansion, suffocated by love (Courtyard), and seductive songs about food and bed (Marigolds and Tangerines, Morning Glory). She’s a very willful girl. The musical was renamed Promises, Promises was very successful on both Broadway and in London’s West End. Reba’s producer, Tony Brown [Elvis’s final keyboardist and former president of MCA Nashville Records], just went in and used guitars. It raked in more than $30 million worldwide with Gentry reportedly receiving 10 percent of the gross take.
In a later interview, Burt Bacharach has said that he wrote this song faster than any other, since he was working to a deadline. The Tonic Theme by bavotasan.com. “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” country balladeer B.J. This confused the industry, as did the fact that “she looked like a Greek goddess and she was deeply involved in tasks usually reserved for men. Her 1969 hit Fancy, recorded with Rick Hall in Muscle Shoals, seemed autobiographical. That’s all she was looking for. Bobbie Lee Gentry is a retired American singer-songwriter who was one of the first female artists to compose and produce her own material. She walked out on Las Vegas in 1981, not long after she gave birth to her son, Tyler, and just after she began caring for her former partner and first producer, Kelly Gordon, when he became seriously ill. Gordon died shortly afterwards, aged 48. Using it to read my work means the world and is truly appreciated.” Feel free to recommend, share, or follow me here on Medium.
Quite possibly, by 1981 Gentry thought there were other things to do with the rest of her life that would be more satisfying than constantly thinking up new costumes, new routines, new ways of avoiding besotted fans. From all appearances, Gentry is healthy and happy. Together they wrote over 60 UK hit singles including six chart-toppers of which, this week’s choice was their final one. Thomas. I like being rich. You had to listen. To echo the sentiments of my talented colleague Bonnie Barton — “I know you are busy and have lots of ways you could be spending your time. “I heard ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ on the radio in ’67 and almost ran into a telephone pole,” says Hall. Luckily for me, that never went through because my wife is wonderful. Something within her does not allow her to think that anybody else is helping her. I thought if I ever write something it’s got to be as real as Ode to Billie Joe. There’s Jim Ford, an ex-boyfriend who claimed he wrote Ode to Billie Joe, his supposed evidence being that she never wrote another song that was as big (but then, nor did he).
Featuring their exquisite covers of “Let It Be Me” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream”; it rejuvenated her chart career, stalling just short of the Top 10 at No. You can hear her stretching; it sounds as if she could physically stop time. This website uses cookies for functionality, analytics and advertising purposes as described in our, The Bobbie Gentry--Elvis Presely Connection. She was married three times, but none of those marriages lasted more than two years. The famous New York Brill Building writers stuck to what they did best, but in 1969 the announcement that the 1960 Oscar-winning Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine comedy, The Apartment, was going to be on stage with a script from Neil Simon was greeted with surprise especially when it was discovered that the songs were going to be penned by Burt Bacharach & Hal David.
Quick links. All Elvis. Haskell felt that “Bobbie was a little more exclusive and a little more reclusive. A woman with a very interesting background — she has been a private detective, newspaper columnist, and an Executive Director of the National Holocaust Survivor Organization — Weiner broke down her friend’s cultivated image as the Mississippi Delta Queen in a conversation with colleague Marshall Terrill of Presspass Blog, who contributed substantially to this profile.
“In the early days, she said to me, ‘Jimmie, I’m gonna be rich. In 1973 Bobbie did a tribute to Elvis in her lavish Las Vegas act in chic Elvis male drag. Gentry walked away with three Grammys, including Best New Artist and Best Vocal Performance by a Female, at the 1968 awards ceremony.
I was listening to the radio one day and I heard Ode to Billie Joe. Bobbie was definitely a firecracker, very strong-willed.”. Her biographer, Tara Murtha, thinks Bobbie Gentry set out a blueprint for women in pop today. That evening Hall asked her point blank, “Do you have another song like ‘Billie Joe’ in you, Bobbie?” “Well, I’ll try to write one, Rick.”. FECC Forum. Weiner, who at one time was the closest person to Gentry, believes that fame can get old real fast and that her former boss is finally enjoying the fruits of her labor. So I just got on the plane and came home.’, Hall was undeterred in his pursuit and finally gained access to Gentry through a dinner engagement arranged by old friend Karl Engemann, the head of Capitol’s A&R department.
Bobbie had a deep voice and a sex appeal like Elvis Presley. “Given the opportunity, I’ll play with a song or an orchestration for as long as I can.” In another interview with Record Collector, Burt Bacharach said: “I had just gotten out of the hospital. Set to take the stage with Mac Davis during a 1983 concert, Gentry canceled the show abruptly – something she had never done before. Does he envision Gentry ever writing or singing again? Billie Joe is a cohesive album that holds up well half a century later.
Bobbie Gentry’s legacy and why she abandoned career for anonymity is probed by "Hooked on a Feeling" artist B.J. 11. I think it’s fantastic.”, • The Girl From Chickasaw County: The Complete Capitol Masters is out now on Universal, Available for everyone, funded by readers. 45 posts Previous; 1; 2; Topic author . The 60s star – who didn’t just write her own songs but had her own TV show, made her own clothes and painted her own album art – could count Elvis and, later, Taylor Swift as fans. Though, as a teenager, Gentry had left the south for Palm Springs – where she changed her name from Roberta Lee Streeter, in tribute to the Jennifer Jones movie Ruby Gentry – her songs were almost always set in and around the Chickasaw County of her childhood, a semi-mythical south, with conversational lyrics about people who were quite likely friends and neighbours. She also peaked at number one in Ireland, [11] number three in South Africa, [12] and number five in Norway. A wise $50,000 investment of her “Billie Joe” earnings in the formation of the Phoenix Suns basketball team made Gentry a team co-owner for 20 years. All Rights Reserved. It doesn’t matter if you feel good or if you have a bad day, you still have to go out there and perform and smile and be enthusiastic during the show. She stills ends her concerts with this early, perfect example of female empowerment. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was third in the Billboard year-end chart of 1967, earning Gentry Grammy awards for Best … Maybe he did it for effect or maybe he just never knew. There’s Bobby Paris, the credited producer on Ode to Billie Joe, who kept photos of Gentry with her face scratched out. ”. When she was put on the spot, Gentry would say “I just sing southern.” It was the kind of record you could build a whole career around, and she knew it. A few subsequent singles, released on various labels through 1978, sunk into obscurity. Exclusive Interview: Determined Arkansan Beth Brickell had an intimate meeting with Princess Grace Kelly at the Palace of Monaco to figure out whether it was feasible for her to pursue her dream of acting.
Wed 17 Oct 2018 03.24 EDT I soon found out that Bobbie’s a music graduate from UCLA.
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