"IT WAS THE THIRD OF JUNE, ANOTHER SLEEPY, DUSTY, DELTA DAY" (Part TWO) In February of 1967, Bobbie Gentry recorded a demo tape of Ode to Billie Joe, at Whitney Recording Studio in Glendale California. She sat on a stool, by herself in the studio, and she plucked it out on her guitar as she sang it. That demo tape was taken to Capitol Records in Los Angeles, and the loved it! The demo became the master tape. But Capitol still thought it needed a little something. A few days later, with Bobbie Gentry present, a producer added the strings. There is a report that when Gentry heard the finished song, she said that her song had been ruined! There is also a story that the song was originally longer, at seven minutes. The radio version runs a bit over 4 minutes. Gentry's hand written lyrics are in the Ole Miss Archives today. They do show more verses than were recorded. The original demo tape has been searched for, and it has never been found. If ONLY??? Ode was released on July 10, 1967, as a single. It took just six weeks to hit number ONE on several charts. It landed Gentry on every television variety and talk show in America. She was an "overnight" sensation. She went right back into the studio and cut a full album, of mostly her songs, to support the hit single. In less than a year she cut a second album. In 1968, the BBC gave her a 30 minute, weekly television show. Most of these shows can be found on YouTube today. They are interesting to say the least. After all this, she toured, she was still a guest on many shows, and she appeared in Vegas. In the early 1970's, Max Baer/Jethro Bodine wrote and produced a movie called, Macon County Line. He wanted a song for it. He asked Gentry to write and perform that song. She did, and Baer used it for the closing credits. While working with Gentry, Max asked her about making Ode to Billie Joe into a movie. She agreed to that. Baer tried writing three different scripts for the Ode movie, none of them worked. He finally hired the man who wrote the script for, Summer of '42. That man delivered a terrible script, but Baer went along with it. (Go watch the Ode movie for yourself) The movie was released June 3, 1976. It did well largely because of the advertising campaign. "What the song did not tell you, the movie will". Not really, but enough tickets were sold to make way more cash back than it cost to produce. Gentry went back to appearing in Vegas with her own music show. She had already married and divorced Mr. Bill Harrah of hotel fame. He was much older than she was, and the marriage lasted less than a year. She then later married Jim Stafford of, "I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes" song fame. (Go find it on YouTube) That marriage only lasted a few years. The Tallahatchie Bridge Gentry wrote about was the bridge that she remembered in Greenwood when she was in grade school there. It was an old steel truss bridge. After she left for California at age 13, that bridge was torn out, and replaced with a modern, flat, concrete bridge. When the song came out in 1967, and she need a bridge to be photographed on, she took people to the old steel truss bridge over the Tallahatchie 14 miles North of Greenwood, at Money, Mississippi. That bridge washed out in 1972. When the Ode movie was made in 1975 - 1976, she needed another old, steel truss bridge for the movie, and for her to be photographed at. She took them to the next standing bridge over the Tallahatchie, a few miles South of Greenwood. In 1967, when Gentry was asked where the Choctaw Ridge was, she said it was the ridge East of Greenwood, that she could see from her daddy's farm when she was growing up. She said that is what they called the ridge that helps to form the Delta on the East side. Most Delta locals do NOT call the Ridge by that name. By 1983, Gentry totally retired from show business and even from giving interview. She lives today on the Eastern outskirts of Memphis, on a large, gated estate. Good for her! The locals say she is sometimes spotted in the local grocery store. Gentry has never answered the question of what was thrown off the bridge. Come back Bobbie Gentry! Somewhere in my head, I am still that nine year old boy in the Summer of 1967, hearing your song for the first time, and I am still in love with you.

Billie Joe's "grave"!