Bobbie Gentry

Infobox musical artist
Name = Bobbie Gentry


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Background = solo_singer
Birth_name = Roberta Lee Streeter
Alias = Bobbie Gentry
Born = birth date and age|1944|07|27
Origin = Chickasaw County, Mississippi, United States
Instrument = Vocals, guitar
Genre = Country, pop, soul music
Occupation = Singer-songwriter
Years_active = 1964-1978
Label = Capitol
Associated_acts = Glen Campbell
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Roberta Lee Streeter (born July 27 1944, Chickasaw County, Mississippi), professionally known as Bobbie Gentry, is an American singer-songwriter. Gentry was one of the first female country artists to write and produce her own material.cite web|title=Bobbie Gentry|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0bfpxq85ldae~T1] She wrote much of her own material, drawing on her Mississippi roots to compose vignettes of the Southern United States.

With her U.S. #1 album, "Ode to Billie Joe", and the Southern Gothic narrative of the title track, she won the Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy awards in 1968. "Ode to Billie Joe" was the fourth most popular song in the United States in 1967.cite web|url=http://www.chairborneranger.com/top100/top100-1967.htm|title=Chairborne Ranger Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Songs 1967|publisher=Chairborne Ranger] Gentry charted nine singles in Billboard Hot 100 and four singles in the U.K. Top 40.cite web|url=http://www.everyhit.co.uk|title=UK Top 40 Hit Database|publisher=everyhit.co.uk|accessdate=2008-04-23] After her first albums, she turned towards the variety show genre. After losing her popularity in the 1970s, she quit performing and has since lived privately in Los Angeles.

Biography

Roberta Streeter is partially of Portuguese ancestry. Her parents divorced shortly after her birth, and she was raised in poverty by her father, on her grandparents' farm in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. After her grandmother traded one of the family's milk cows for a neighbor's piano, seven-year-old Bobbie composed her first song, "My Dog Sergeant Is a Good Dog". She attended elementary school in Greenwood, Mississippi, and began teaching herself to play guitar, bass, and banjo. At 13, she moved to Arcadia, California to live with her mother, Ruby Bullington Streeter.

Roberta Streeter graduated from Palm Valley School in 1960. She chose the stage name "Bobbie Gentry" from the film "Ruby Gentry" and began performing at local country clubs. Encouraged by Bob Hope, she performed in a revue of Les Folies Bergeres nightclub of Las Vegas. Gentry then moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA as a philosophy major, and supported herself by working in clerical jobs, occasionally performing at local nightclubs. She later transferred to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to hone her composition and performing skills. In 1964, she made her recording debut, with a pair of duets - "Ode to Love" and "Stranger in the Mirror" with rockabilly singer Jody Reynolds.

Gentry married casino entrepreneur Bill Harrah in Reno, Nevada, but the marriage lasted only briefly. In 1979, Gentry married singer-songwriter Jim Stafford. Their marriage lasted 11 months.

Musical career

In 1967, Gentry produced her first single, "Mississippi Delta"/"Ode to Billie Joe", detailing the suicide of Billie Joe McAllister, who flings himself off the Tallahatchie Bridge. The song used a traditional blues scale, lowered the 3rd and the 7th degree.cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:acftxn8kldke|publisher =All Music Guide|title=Ode to Billie Joe] The track topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in August 1967 and placed #4 in the year-end chart. The single hit #8 on Billboard Black Singles and #13 in the U.K. Top 40. The single sold over three million copies." The Rolling Stone" listed it among "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2001.Listen
filename=Bobbie Gentry Ode To Billie Joe.ogg
title="Ode to Billie Joe"
description=Sample from "Ode To Billie Joe".
format=Ogg

The LP replaced "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" at the top of U.S. charts. It also reached #5 of the Billboard Black Albums charts. Bobbie Gentry won three Grammy Awards in 1967, including "Best New Artist" and " Best Female Pop Vocal Performance". She was also named the Academy of Country Music's Best New Female Vocalist. In February, 1968 Bobbie Gentry took part in the Italian Song Festival in Sanremo, as one of the two performers of the song "La siepe" by Vito Pallavicini and Massara. In a competition of 24 songs, the entry qualified to the final 14 and eventually placed ninth.cite web|url=http://www.hitparadeitalia.it/sanremo/edizioni/1968.htm|title= Sanremo 1968 |publisher = HitParadeItalia]

Gentry's later albums did not match the success of her first. In 1968 she collaborated on the album Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell, which achieved a gold record. In October 1969 Gentry's "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" a popular song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David reached number one on the UK singles chart for a single week. In January 1970, it became a number six hit on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for Dionne Warwick.

In 1970 she received recognition for her composition, "Fancy," which rose to #26 on the U.S. Country charts and #31 on the pop charts. Gentry's personal view on the song: cite web|url=http://www.geocities.com/odetobobbiegentry/misc/aftdark.htm|title=Ode to Bobbie Gentry|author=Morag Veljkovic] cquote|"Fancy" is my strongest statement for women's lib, if you really listen to it. I agree wholeheartedly with that movement and all the serious issues that they stand for — equality, equal pay, day care centers, and abortion rights. The album brought Gentry a Grammy nomination for "Best Female Vocalist". [ [http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/grammy.html Grammy Awards for Linda Ronstadt] .] However, as with the rest of her post-"Ode to Billie Joe" albums, it had little commercial success.

tage performances and TV work (1971-1978)

Due to Gentry's commercial failure, Capitol did not renew her contract. Gentry continued to write and perform, touring Europe, generating a significant fan base in the United Kingdom and headlining a Las Vegas review for which she produced, choreographed, wrote and arranged the music. In 1974, Bobbie Gentry hosted a short-lived summer replacement variety show, "The Bobbie Gentry Happiness Hour", on CBS. The show, which served as her own version of Campbell's hit series "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour", also on CBS, was not renewed for a full season. That same year, Bobbie Gentry wrote and performed "Another Place, Another Time" for writer-director Max Baer, Jr.'s film, "Macon County Line". In 1976, Baer directed a feature film based on "Ode to Billie Joe" called "Ode to Billy Joe" [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074995/ Ode to Billy Joe] International Movie Database] , starring Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor. In the movie, the mystery of the title character's suicide is revealed as a part of the conflict between his love for Bobbie Lee Hartley and his emerging homosexuality. Bobbie Gentry's re-recording of the song for the film hit the pop charts, as did Capitol's reissue of the original recording; both peaked outside the top fifty. Her behind-the-scenes work in television production failed to hold her interest. After a 1978 single for Warner Bros. Records, "He Did Me Wrong, But He Did It Right", failed to chart, Bobbie Gentry decided to retire from show business. Her last public appearance as a performer was on Christmas Night 1978 as a guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". After that, she settled in Los Angeles and remained out of public life.

In popular culture

In 2004, singer-songwriter Jill Sobule began performing a song called "Bobbie Gentry" about the mystique surrounding Gentry since her retirement from the public eye. The song is a candidate for inclusion on Sobule's forthcoming studio album.

Discography

ingles

Albums

Data from All Music Guide

References

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/odetobobbiegentry/ Bobbie Gentry discography, lyrics, biography, photo gallery, links, message board, etc.]