Bobbie Gentry ENTER TEASER

Bobbie Gentry

Subscribe to Breaking News Alerts

In 2018, Prince's estate released a recording from the artist's fabled vault called Piano & A Microphone 1983. Allen Beaulieu/The Prince Estate hide caption

toggle caption

Allen Beaulieu/The Prince Estate

Best Music Of 2018

The Best Reissues Of 2018

December 19, 2018 • This year, fueled by the vinyl resurgence and recent deaths of major stars, the field of archival music percolated with releases of music both well-known and relatively unknown.

Mercury Rev Remakes A Country-Rock Opera With Margo Price, Norah Jones, More

Mercury Rev Ken Stringfellow hide caption

toggle caption

Ken Stringfellow

All Songs Considered

Mercury Rev Remakes A Country-Rock Opera With Margo Price, Norah Jones, More

November 14, 2018 • The psych-rock band's ambitious recreation of Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete features a cast of women vocalists gifted at pondering both interior and exterior worlds from a remove.

Stream World Cafe's Playlist Of Story Songs

Ode to Billie Joe by Bobbie Gentry Courtesy of the artist hide caption

toggle caption

Courtesy of the artist

World Cafe

Stream World Cafe's Playlist Of Story Songs

WXPN

October 23, 2017 • Before there was TV, before there were movies, before there was YouTube, people used songs to tell stories.

Laura Nyro records in the studio in October 1968 in New York City. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Music

The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women

July 24, 2017 • NPR's list of the greatest albums made by women, from 1964 to the present.

The Confounding, Enigmatic 'Ode To Billie Joe'

Bobbie Gentry rarely gave interviews and disappeared from public life in the mid-1970s. NBC/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

NBC/Getty Images

Music News

The Confounding, Enigmatic 'Ode To Billie Joe'

June 3, 2014 • Tuesday is June 3, a date memorialized in a 1967 hit by singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry. Even with a suicide in the first verse, the song helped Gentry bump the Beatles off the top of the charts.

The Confounding, Enigmatic 'Ode To Billie Joe'

Listen · 3:49 3:49

Download
Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/318452912/318576010" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Transcript