I reckon I was barely ten or eleven years old when I first fell in love. And I didn’t fall in love with a person: it was a picture of a person. That picture was in a monthly music magazine called Record Song Book. She wore a short skirt, long boots, had long, dark flowing hair and she was beautiful. Her voice was even better than beautiful. She was Bobbie Gentry.
The first time I heard her music would have been sometime in 1967 when she had a massive hit with Ode to Billie Joe, a fictional song about Billie Joe McAllister, who kills himself by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Of course, I had no idea where the Tallahatchie Bridge was, but I was able to imagine what it looked like; a large wooden structure across – surprise! surprise! – a river. I knew that Billie Joe had thrown himself off the bridge, too, although not why or what happened to him.
It was that voice, as well as just about everything about Gentry that I became besotted with. A strong, powerful voice with the slightest rasp when she hit the high notes, albeit with considerable ease.
I didn’t buy any of her records and I don’t know why. She was catalogued as country music but I always felt there was much more depth and variety to her work than a simple label like that. I recently listened to her stellar 1968 album ‘The Delta Sweete’ and realised what I had been missing all these years. Way ahead of her time.
Yet Gentry never made a record after 1971 and retired in 1982, aged just 40. She stepped away from public life, never to return. Today, I remain deeply in love with the Bobbie Gentry, at least the 1960s version and the sound of her voice takes me back to another time, another place.
Still my favourite Gentry song was a cover of the Bacharach/David song “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”, a tune made famous by Dionne Warwick. Warwick’s version was great, but Gentry’s made the song come alive. There was real soul in her work.
She’s 78 now, happily still with us. I’m beginning to learn about her legacy and soon I’ll be buying up the essential music she created, which has rarely been bettered by any artist. And I still love her.
