Ode to Billie Joe/Touch Em Wit [Best of]

The legendary Bobbie Gentry's superb 1967 debut, Ode To Billie Joe, and the very worthy 1969 pop album, Touch'em With Love at long last receive a proper remastering by Australian retro label, Raven Records.

In 1967, Gentry recorded for single release the self-penned "Mississippi Delta". The song was a dead ringer for the style of songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival. The b-side recorded for "Mississippi Delta" was an acoustic story song with an unresolved mystery. The song featured Gentry's own acoustic guitar work and composer Jimmy Haskell's ominous string arrangement. When it was released, the fine A-side was more or less ignored as deejays all over the country preferred the flipside. "ode To Billie Joe" became a Billboard number one pop and country song for no less than four weeks in the fall of 1967. The song would launch Bobbie Gentry's career and later spawn the first motion picture crafted from a song. The popular film was directed by Max Baer [yes, that Max Baer, Jethro of Beverly Hillbillies] with the screenplay by Herman Raucher (Summer of 42) and would star the heartthrob of the mid-70s, Robbie Benson.

The entirety of the Ode To Billie Joe album has a similar theme that of life in the Mississippi Delta region. It is partly autobiographical and an interesting glimpse of the heat, poverty, church, and something any southerner knows about - bugs. Yes, long before Pearl Jam sang of bugs on their Vitalogy album, Bobbie Gentry wrote this amusing ditty lamenting the omnipresence of bugs naming ten different ones in the process. The only song not written by Gentry was the "Niki Hoeky", but it fits in nicely.

The Touch'em With Love album is a much more sophisticated affair that has been rightly compared to the Dusty Springfield masterpiece, Dusty In Memphis. Gentry even covers "Son of a Preacher Man" here, and does it justice. Of the ten songs, eight are well-chosen covers. My personal favorite is her renditon of "You've Made Me So Very Happy" which is the song popularized by Brenda Holloway and later by Blood, Sweat & Tears. The two originals are "Seasons Come, Seasons Go" and "Glory Hallelujah How They'll Sing". The former is a lovely ballad celebrating love of the changing seasons and moods of romance in comparison. The latter describes a typical Sunday in the small protestant churches of the South.

Bobbie Gentry didn't make very many records. The ones she did are some of the best music popular ever recorded. She chose to retire in the late 1970's for personal reasons. It is my hope that she will grace us again with a new album if she so choses someday. (Note to Rick Rubin - you should pay her a visit!) In the meantime, we are fortunate that Raven Records has so far issued six of her albums on three CDs. There remains the Glen Campbell/Bobbie Gentry album of 1968 and a few obscure singles. Perhaps there are others in the EMI vaults that will be procured by Raven for one last collection.

Ditto the review by J. Wade.

I would like to add that there is only one Bobbie Gentry album left which Raven has not released, but it is a duet record, made with Glen Campbell. It is the fourth album, between 1968's LOCAL GENTRY and TOUCH 'EM WITH LOVE, from 1969.

This last pairing is fascinating for displaying Bobbie's artistic evolution in one big jump from her first to her fifth record. Although I do see some parallels on TOUCH with DUSTY IN MEMPHIS (the inclusion of Bobbie's version of "Son Of A Preacher Man" invites comparison), the overall quality of this record is rougher and swampier. Unlike Dusty, Bobbie was a real Southerner by birth. MEMPHIS is a polished, sophisticated and reverential homage, whereas Gentry's work is flavored by its authenticity. ODE was and is a startling and unique creation, as were Bobbie's second and third albums. But the stylistic approaches and song selection of these two Bobbie Gentry albums are quite different, which is why their coupling is so interesting. For one thing, the covers outnumber the originals on TOUCH, whereas Gentry's debut contains but one cover. Other differences include a cohesive, vividly individualistic quality on ODE, and more of a pastiche approach on TOUCH. The guitar rhythms on the first album are mostly based on the same figure, which counts toward a unified feel and consistency of mood, even between the fast and slow songs. TOUCH seems to have been a bid for greater commercial appeal, with "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" becoming a huge hit in England as proof of its success. Gentry's followup album, FANCY, would continue in this same vein, but its title song, Gentry's own, harkens back to "Ode To Billie Joe," as it is a "story song" concerning rural people. Gentry's final album, PATCHWORK, would return Bobbie Gentry to her beginnings, being almost entirely self-penned and conceptual, rather than just a collection of songs. PATCHWORK's atmosphere was similar to ODE's, but its instrumentation was broader, as on TOUCH 'EM WITH LOVE, an album which can therefore be viewed as a transitional work.

Bobbie Gentry's evolving career never caught fire with the general public, once the frenzy over the hit single, "Ode To Billie Joe" died down, and that's a pity. After seven albums and a handful of singles, Gentry packed it in. What she left, however, was a singular body of work that withstands the test of time, perhaps even gaining some luster for its author's mysterious disappearing act. Her like will never be seen again. I recommend all three of Raven's Bobbie Gentry "twofers," and am also thankful for the bonus tracks they each contain.

The raw, bluesy edge in Gentry's voice as she spells out "M-I-Double S-I-Double S-I-Double P-I" sounds as if she's still clearing her throat from the previous night's bourbons and Marlboros. The album's title hit doesn't really prepare you for the hard soul guitar, funky drumming and swampy horns of the opening track. That same vocal edginess also works well on the album's ballads, combining folk, country, soul and jazz notes with textural orchestrations. The album's few pop tracks, including "Sunday Best" and "Hurry, Tuesday Child," don't play to Gentry's strengths and are outclassed by the funkier, bluesier, country-folk. Gentry wrote ten of the album's eleven cuts, but she didn't have ten fully original arrangements, as the acoustic guitar and bass hooks of "Ode to Billy Joe" are repeated on nearly every track, blunting the punch of "Ode to Billy Joe" by the time you get to the hit at album's end. Her lyrics sketch the Delta's poverty, fauna ("Bugs"), commerce, characters, and gothic secrets. This is a strong debut, though it doesn't fully live up to its original single ("Mississippi Delta"), nor the flip-side ("Ode to Billy Joe") that shot Gentry to stardom. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]