Jackson Jambalaya

The lyric is clean and iconic, especially in the Deep South and, most of all, in Mississippi. For those of a certain generation, it instantly evokes a time, a place and a way of life: “It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day, I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was bailin’ hay.”

The woman’s voice delivering the lyrics was smoky and raspy, yet compelling, as the bewitching story she was telling spilled out during a family dinner table conversation. There was a suicide. A young man had taken his own life by leaping from a rural bridge in the Mississippi Delta. Still, there was mystery about why, and a deeper mystery regarding reports that, before the suicide, the young man and a young woman who strongly resembled the narrator were seen throwing something off the bridge.

What was thrown from the bridge? Why did the young man take his own life? And why was the young woman’s family so callously indifferent to a tragedy that may well have stemmed directly from their daughter and sister?

In 1967, the Vietnam War and the civil rights struggle dominated the news, the political arena, and in great measure, the country’s popular culture. That year began with the Apollo 1 disaster at Cape Kennedy that claimed astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White. Later in the year, Arabs and Israelis fought the Six Day War, race riots broke out in Detroit and Newark, Dr. Christiaan Barnard successfully performed the first heart transplant, and San Francisco was the scene of the counterculture “Summer of Love.”

Performing Songwriter Magazine writer Bill DeMain in 2013 succinctly captured the contrast of those issues and the international preoccupation with Gentry’s song: “But around water coolers, the hot topic was what Billie Joe McAllister and his girlfriend threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

“The mystery created by Bobbie Gentry in her debut single “Ode to Billie Joe” cast a spell over the entire country. Set to a backing of spare acoustic guitar chords and atmospheric strings, Gentry’s sensual, Southern-fried voice relates the story of two Mississippi teenage lovers who share a dark secret that eventually leads to the boy’s suicide.”

I was eight years old when I first heard Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe” on a monaural speaker in my father’s 1961 Chevrolet Impala on AM radio on a Sunday in late July after church. My father reached for the radio dial to change the station. But my Mississippi Delta-born mother uncharacteristically stopped him: “I want to hear the rest of her story.”

Seems that many wanted to hear the rest of Bobby Gentry’s story, as the record soared up to #1 on the Billboard charts in the U.S. and charted well in several other countries.

Born Roberta Lee Streeter on July 27, 1942, near Woodland, Mississippi, in Chickasaw County, she adopted the stage name “Bobbie Gentry” while performing as a teen in a duo with her mother in California. She later told an interviewer that the name came from a 1952 Charlton Heston film titled “Ruby Gentry.”

DeMain measured the impact of the song in his 2013 article: “In its first week of release, “Ode” sold 750,000 copies, knocking (The Beatles’) “All You Need Is Love” out of the top spot on the Billboard chart. It stayed there for four weeks. The song won Gentry three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist (she was the first Country artist to ever win in this category).

“The enigma of her best-known song is nothing compared to that of Bobbie Gentry herself. In the early ’70s, she was riding high — headlining in Vegas, duetting with Glen Campbell on several hits, hosting her own TV series. Then around 1975, after contributing music to a movie based on “Ode,” she checked out,” DeMain noted.

Gentry has not given interviews, performed, or appeared publicly since her 1982 appearance at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Various unverified media reports have the now-83-year-old singer living in seclusion either in Los Angeles or near Memphis.

And Gentry remains the only definitive source for exactly what or whom was thrown from the Tallahatchie Bridge that fateful June 3rd. Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.