woo hoo ! one of my all-time faves . this was from an episode of the
smothers brothers...i'll have to do some more research to see if i can
find a original air date . but i want to put this up now . anyway, please
enjoy ms bobby gentry...
update : episode 1,season 2, 10 september 1967. below is the i.m.d.b
page link...this episode also had pete seeger,and janet leigh...and written
by...steve martin .
4 comments:
One of 1967's biggest hits! It won some kind of grammy I'm sure, or Bobbie Gentry did, and the song was a dubbed a "country crossover" but really, it was folk music with a slight rock beat. Tells a story. They made a bad TV movie out of it years later,...I think Robbie Bensen was in it. I remember "Ode to Billy Joe" being the big hit around August of 1967, the Hoovers and Timlin's went camping up at Lake Missauakie at Lake City near Cadillac when it was getting heavy play on the radio. By the time the new TV season was on in September, it wasa huge hit, so Smother Brothers (Dan and Tom, right?)obviously had a star draw for their show. And now as I type this the blog trak is playing Joe South singing "The Games People Play" another biggie from the early 1969 period of Hoover-Timlin extreme time. They don't don't make songs or prductions of songs like those anymore, with orchestra backing or rock band, with lyrics with a good story or message. now it's all "me,me, me" and "the hood" and "shake yer booty" and will he or she "do it to me" (whatever the hell that is, right?) in all "languages," hip hop, metal, pop and country and whatever else you call it.. in otherwords, frivolous self centered subject for the sake of selling the "star." whatever happened to good writing? Ode to Billy Joe was a good sampling of what good song subject writing is about, and it left a mystery to the listener as to why Billy Jo jumped off the bridge, a neat trick to get people to talk about the song, therefore selling itself further.
Yeah then with the movie the idiots made it into a Robbie Benson gay story....To teach us all a lesson!! I actually had that single. Hey Jeanni C. Riley's "Harper Valley PTA", remember that one, and with TV movie later with Barbara Eden? Although not quite the same I know. Good story about hypocrites though. Not quite the same catagorie as Ode To Billy Joe. Thanx Steve, good one. Brings back memories.
Hahaha, I just noticed that Harper Valley clip there next to the other.
Yeh that was an early gay story. I wasn't happy with it only because it was dull (like robbie Bensen himself!) and not your traditonal mystery. Back then, it was too obvious a story line. The song was meant for it to be a mystery, not tell us why Billy Joe jumped off the bridge. I didn't mind Harper Valley PTA with Barbara Eden...of course, I didn't mind Barbara Eden in anything, or not in anything, even better....I saw the Return of Jeannie, but it wasn't very good. Wayne Rodgers played Tony Nelson, Larry Hagman didn't wanna do it.Or esle he became too illl, don't remember. Wasn't the same, and corny too. Like those Gilligan movies, after the first one, they did not cut it, they were awful.
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