...but Fancy was her name!
The enigmatic Miss Bobbie Gentry exploded onto scene in 1967 with "Ode to Billie Joe," a murky story-song wrapped in mystery and tantalizing secrets. That #1 hit made Bobbie an immediate superstar, with variety show appearances and Vegas contracts beckoning. But by the mid-1970's, she had shucked it all, went incognito, and has barely been heard from since; personal details are hazy, at best, and she seems to have succeeded in disappearing altogether. Wherever you are, Miss Bobbie, we miss your fabulous lower lashes, your Delta Queen backcomb, and, most of all, that spectacular, smoked-hamhocks-and-braised-greens voice.
Shortly before she dropped off the face of the planet, Bobbie's most famous song became the basis for a cheesy, made-for-TV flick starring Robbie Benson. In 1976's Ode to Billy Joe (note the more "masculine" spelling), the film offers this explanation of just why Billie Joe jumped off the Tallahatchee Bridge:
'cause he got cornholed by another man. Quelle horreur!
Come to think of it, this travesty of a backwoods soap opera may have been what forced Bobbie Gentry into early retirement.
More realistically, it would have just made him back comb his hair and put on some lower lashes.
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