Bobbie Gentry

Bobbie Gentry Biography

Bobbie Gentry, a gorgeous, sensuous young woman, who seemingly came out of nowhere, brought a soulful, Southern delta story-telling sound to country-pop in the late 1960s, when she exploded on the charts around the world with the self-written Ode To Billie Joe. It was one of 1967's finest singles, and for an all-too-brief period, established the dark-haired Southern beauty, as one of country music's genuine originators. Set to a backing of spare acoustic guitar chords and atmospheric strings, Bobbie Gentry's sensual, Southern-fried voice related the story of two Mississippi teenage lovers who share a dark secret that eventually leads to the boy's suicide in Ode To Billie Joe. The mystery created in the song seemed to cast a spell worldwide for years - even today - despite the cinematic details in the song's lyric, we still don't know exactly what happened up there on Choctaw Ridge.

One of the most celebrated examples of Southern Gothic literature in song, Bobbie Gentry, who wrote and sang the hit that not only knocked the Beatles 'All You Need Is Love' off the top of the American pop charts, but also won a bunch of Grammys, hosted her own television shows in Britain and America, starred for several years in lavish Las Vegas shows, ran her own business and then in her mid-thirties created another mystery, when she seemingly vanished from show business without a word or by-your-leave.