I just finished reading Ode To Billie Joe by Tara Murtha, a new release in the 33 1/3 series of books. Straying from the template of most other titles in the series, it isn’t devoted to an in-depth analysis of Bobbie Gentry’s debut album but is instead an investigative biography of the reclusive singer who made her last album in 1971 and completely vanished from the public eye in the early 80s.
Murtha has done a lot of digging in archives and spoken to people who worked with her, but with such a big hole at the center of the story — Gentry herself — it has a Rashomon-like quality with people offering conflicting stories and opinions about the singer which only makes her more mysterious by the end. The only thing that seems clear is Gentry was something of a feminist pioneer: writing and producing her own records, and negotiating her own business deals (very successfully), at a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman artist to do so.
It’s a terrific book full of fascinating trivia (I could do without knowing Gentry was a fan of Ayn Rand though) but sadly it can’t answer the really big question: Why did the driven, ambitious, and creative woman capable of writing beautiful songs like this just…quit. As Murtha says in the book, “Only one person knows, and she isn’t talking.”
Download: Courtyard – Bobbie Gentry (mp3)
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If I ever went back to blogging and did a series of my mum’s records Ode to Billie Joe would be included. Possibly my mum’s favourite lyrics, and Gentry was a great singer.
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A great singer/songwriter. Good luck to her for doing it her way and getting out of the celebrity circus when she wanted to. A bit concerned about the idea of Ms Gentry being an Ayn Rand fan though – considering how sensitive and thoughtful so many of her songs were. But she was a complex woman, so maybe it’s not that much of a shock that her business side veered to the far right.
Speaking of Gentry and Ayn Rand, you might enjoy this story. I don’t know if Bobbie was involved with a firm called Gentry International , but it seems they wanted to film Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged”. Rand agreed on the condition that they get Rod “Twilight Zone” Serling to write the screenplay. Gentry brought the proposition to Serling, and “Serling simply laughed—his laugh getting louder and longer the more he pondered it.”
(That story was brought to you courtesy of the website Ayn Rand Fun Facts – well worth a visit!) http://aynrandfunfacts.tumblr.com/
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Actually I can believe that such an apparently hard-headed businesswoman as Gentry was into Rand.
Trivia from the book: Gentry was originally offered the Ann Margaret role in the film ‘Carnal Knowledge’ but turned it down. That’s why the character is called Bobbie.
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