Do you know/remember Bobby Gentry?

[valley ranch]

Bobby wrote: Ode to Billie Joe, here she sings slightly western in the next cut she sings the same song deep south. If you care to listen to both cuts, you're welcome.

 

[valley ranch]

 

[Sam BigDeer]

Ahhhh, YES! !
Remember her well; loved her music...
Sam

 

[valley ranch]

Yes, she moved south, she was in Tahoe for a good while, married Bill Harrah, Harrah's Casino, she stopped performing one day in Vagas, no interviews. She's not a hermit, gets out goes places, people say they see her shopping, at the coffee shop.

Roberta[Bobby] Streeter I think her last name was, she said, not to me, she got the name Gentry from a movie she liked.

 

[Nyboy]

What where those things on her eyelids !

 

[valley ranch]

Those things on her eye lids were popular then. I did make up for shows, like lengerie shows free, I was a hairdresser once apon a time. For a dark room with harsh lighting eyes have to be drawn on or they don't show up.
She didn't ware that mess out and about.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I always figured what they threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge was an engagement ring, a pretty strong way to say "NO!" But she was not talking.

 

[valley ranch]

That's what some settled on, the ring. The song was almost 10 min long, when it was shortened to just over 4 it created kind of a mystery.

I think I heard the song as she wrote it only once, I had a different guess as to what was thrown off the bridge.
She taught herself to play several instruments, wrote all her songs, can sit with a guitar and just talk a song.

 

[ninnymary]

Loved that song! I guess you can tell my age.

Mary

 

[valley ranch]

She wrote all her songs. When she played Harrah's Casino ,where she met and married Bill Harrah, South Lake Tahoe was a small town. Bobby got tired of performing in the late 1970ies a multi millionaire by then, moved to Los Angeles where she lives today.
She liked the movie Ruby Gentry, that was her choice for a stage name.