Bobbie Gentry POX

My introduction to Bobbie Gentry was the LP she did with Glen Campbell, which is wonderful if a complete cornfest

I got the recent boxset based on praise from the Hoffman forums, having only heard a few of the hits prior. It's very good, but probably more than you need.

The Delta Sweete is the only really perfect album of the bunch, but man is it really great. After the success of Billie Joe, the label gave her total creative control and she knocked it out of the park. Unfortunately, it didn't sell and afterwards the albums were littered with cruddy covers ("Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head", Beatles, "Son of a Preacher Man" which should be better than it is).

Ode to Billie Joe is very good as well, with a lot of the songs using the same sort of bossanova guitar style as the title track. There are a couple of clunkers ("Bugs") but nothing awful. It feels like a rushed album with songs to pad out the hit but it has a relaxed charm.

The album with Glen Campbell is by far my least favorite. Too much of him and not enough Bobbie. Her voice is so fluid and expressive and it highlights how much Campbell's is... not.

The rest of the albums are a mixed bag. Some terrific originals mixed with blah covers and rando minor tracks.

thanks Cow_Art. Started listening to the Delta Sweete at lunhc and it was well worth it!

Oddly, after composing almost every song on the Ode to Billy Joe LP she wrote fewer and fewer songs with each subsequent album (only one on 1970's Fancy) but then suddenly she came up with the entirely self-composed Patchwork in 1971 which sounds much different from the albums before it, quieter and simpler I would describe it - but that turned out to be her last album.

isn’t there some story or rumor that she was dating Jim Ford at the time and he helped with the writing, at least the title song?

of Ode to Billie Joe

which he told to Nick Lowe who repeated it. Seems to have been slapped down by many others.

never heard that

Patchwork was my favourite discovery when I listened to the box set last year.

What’s the deal with “thunder in the afternoon”? It’s my favorite discovery of the year but I guess it only ever appeared on some German “best of” CD or something... and this new balearic comp from Bill Brewster. Is there a whole lost album of chilled out electric piano soul??

https://youtu.be/eJt4953RY04

Bump

"Thunder in the Afternoon" is from album sessions in 1978 that never resulted in an album

ahhh hmmm thanks!

please stop bumping threads of older musicians i'm gonna get upset here.

go to hell

we’re all upset

You may know my body but you cannot know my mind

Thread is too short.

How the hell did she leave Smoke in the can and unreleased, that song blows me away? Seen some recent uploads of her Ed Sullivan spots, such a weird dichotomy between her amazing songwriting artistry and the sort of show biz automaton stuff she churned out in tv specials and Vegas, not surprising she walked away at a still youngish age when she made enough money to retire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX0b7dL61WM

Oh hell yes.

Woah

Attention! Tonight, from 9pm, BBC4 is showing not one, not two but FIVE half hour programmes from the two series Bobbie Gentry made for the BBC in 1968 and 1971 respectively. Guest artists include Long John Baldry, Donovan, the Hollies and Jerry Reed.

Just reading that these episodes were supposedly lost - in typical BBC fashion - but here they are and they look great. Live performances too, so right now we have Donovan singing "The Trees They Grow High", a song I had no idea he had covered.

hoping these show up on youtube soon or somewhere

Donovon ep. is great, esp. the duet of First There Is a Mountain. Hollies' version of Blowin' in the Wind is awful. Lovely trouser suits!

yes damn I'd like to see these in the US

they are up for the moment here's the donovan one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5O5CFmlXRk