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Travis: I think I will start by saying, respectfully, Bobbie Gentry of the 1960s and 70s…hubba hubba.

Tyler: Oh, without doubt.  Lady was (probably still is) a looker.

Travis: You see if I say “respectfully” that means it’s not crass.

(cartoon wolf’s eyes become telescopes, jaw hits the floor, tongue rolls out like a red carpet)

Tyler: Ah-OOOOGAH!

I debated with myself whether to acknowledge the undeniable fact that Gentry is fine, fine, fine.  I’m grateful that you broke the ice.

Travis: Happy to oblige. Beyond that, my knowledge of her before listening to this album was the great hit song “Ode to Billie Joe” which was enough to get me to purchase an early greatest hits of hers on vinyl. But I never really listened to much of it other than “Ode to Billie Joe”. I have also through the years somehow become aware of her excellent cover of the Beatles’ “Fool on the Hill.”

A couple of songs from The Delta Sweete appeared on that Greatest Hits but I never paid them much mind, so I’m going into this pretty cold. Do you want to set the scene as to why you singled out this album for us to talk about?

Tyler: My love of “Ode To Billie Joe,” to my ear a perfect song, led me to roll the dice on a used copy of the album arranged around “Ode,” a collection also called Ode To Billie Joe.  That LP is, brass tacks, good shit.

After that discovery, I started sniffing around for hand-me-down Gentry at the record shops.  Jumped on Spotify, as well, and rolled through much of her—slim—catalog.  Later albums, like Touch ‘Em With Love, are clear attempts by the label to rebrand or hustle product.  I believe it’s an LP called Local Gentry that has three Beatle covers.  The clear genre-bounding, singer-songwriter bent got scrubbed out.  Not that the albums after The Delta Sweete lack merit, mind you.  They’re just the work of an interpreter, a damn good one.

What we have on that first album, though, and here on The Delta Sweete?  Well, we have something else entirely.

Travis: It’s definitely unique. Country-pop psychedelia with a bit of Vegas? Some of the less stripped down songs remind me of movie soundtrack music from the era, like the big swing for the fences pop singles that would be attached to movies and play over the credits, or the jazzy soft-funky-rock that would be present in things like Lalo Schiffrin’s score for Bullitt.

Seems like the kind of experimental venture a record company might give someone who had a big hit, then regret the budget they spent on it. I mean that in a complimentary way, though.

Tyler: Oh, I agree.  I think that’s exactly what it is.

“We let her get away with that?”

Travis: For me as a listener, I’d say about 75% of it worked, which is a pretty good hit rate for an album this all over the place.

I really like that 75%. The 25% I don’t like I very much don’t like, but I respect the goin-fer-it.

Tyler: I can dig it.  On this end, these last couple weeks revisiting the album really amped up my appreciation for it.  I wouldn’t cut a track.  Not even “Reunion,” a ridiculous investment of work that I used to hate but now adore.

Travis: “Reunion” was one of my bummers. It and “Sermon” remind me of the sort of fast talk-singing cleverness omnipresent in Broadway musicals like The Music Man.

Tyler: I’m hooked by the go-fer-it.  “Reunion” is complex as hell, like four or five different melodies all stacked up, with Gentry and some absurd coot spouting off irresistible bits about clashes between family.  I absolutely get anybody who is gonna dislike it.  But I’m in.

Travis: I found it especially jarring after the first two songs. “Okolona River Bottom Band” is really interesting, mixing the rugged acoustic strumming with the big sounding horns and backing vocals. And “Big Boss Man” made me hear a song I associate with one of Elvis’s bad periods musically in a new way.

Tyler: “Okolona” is so fucking confident.  She is strutting her way through that song.

Travis: I think she owns “Parchman Farm,” a song I’ve heard done by a million male artists, as well.

It’s also a really good balance of country-blues with lush instrumentation.

“Mornin’ Glory” was nice but I kind of wish it had gone over the top with the schmaltz and strings, it felt like the song deserved it.

Tyler: I think “Mornin’ Glory” is pretty lovely.  Sensual, sweet, affectionate.  I buy it.

Travis: She’s got a great voice. It’s imperfect, not virtuosic, but always serves the song.

Tyler: She really does.  And she knows what she’s doing with that voice.

One thing I reckon about Gentry by virtue of Delta Sweete—not to mention the later covers—is that she not only loved, but studied The Beatles. Rubber Soul and Revolver especially.

The variety and the sheer imagination of it all.

Travis: I get that vibe.

Tyler: A gem I know particularly well is “Louisiana Man.”  Heavy rotation a couple years back, but it has yet to lose its shine.

Travis: Oh man, we disagree on Louisiana Man

Tyler: I was afraid of that.

Muskrat hides hanging by the dozen, man!

Travis: Oh that song definitely made me imagine a two-dimensional shack setting with like Muppets popping their heads out of the windows in it singing different parts.

but not in a good way.

On the second side of the album my top tracks were “Jessye’ Lisabeth” and “Courtyard”.

Tyler: Both great songs.  I’m also very big on “Refractions.”  That to me is a pristine piece of songwriting.  The tune isn’t even my favorite—it’s the sheer smarts and craftsmanship that gets me.  It’s haunting.

Travis: That is also a good one. I’m torn on “Tobacco Road.” It’s a song a million 60s garage rock bands did and I’m not sure hers differs enough or adds anything special to set it apart.

Tyler: I think she brings authenticity to it, y’know?  Feels like she could’ve lived that life.

Travis: Fair enough. I’m not torn on “Penduli Pendulum”–more than anything on the album, it sounds super dated and music of that flower-in-your-hair flavor did not age well to me.

Unless I’m missing something subversive about it that is obvious.

Tyler: “Penduli” is an odd lilt in the middle of the proceedings.  I think it’s a nice low-key counterpoint, but I get where you’re coming from.  Jenny Gump would’ve rocked that shit.

Travis: Very “people who went to woodstock then got married, cut their hair, and voted for Reagan” vibes

In doing a bit of research about this I found that indie rock band Mercury Rev did an album length cover of The Delta Sweete using guest vocalists such as Norah Jones, Phoebe Bridgers, and Laetitia Sadier (from Stereolab). I do not want to hear this album. I made the mistake of listening to the Walkmen’s tribute to Nilsson’s Pussy Cats and I’m good on all that for this lifetime.

covering another person’s cover of a song reminds me of me calling a friend to see what he was up to one evening and he answered from a show where, and I quote: “I am hearing a band cover Rage Against the Machine’s cover of ‘Renegades of Funk.’ I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

Tyler: Pussy Cats?  Cover me some Harry.

(the album)

Travis: Pussy Cats is great. The full-length cover of it by the Walkmen, not so much.

the epitome of “who was asking for this?”

Anyway just felt like if we were talking about this album this prestige full length cover warranted a mention and an out-of-hand dismissal.

Tyler: Mention warranted.  Dismissal TBD.  I do love Norah Jones and Phoebe Bridgers.

Travis: I like some of the singers featured on the tribute as well, just not particularly interested in or confident about their ability to pull off this material.

Mercury Rev is one of those 1990s indie rock bands that I was too young for in high school and never got interested in later. See also: Pavement.

CD at the cool listening station at Streetside in 1996 ass band

It seems I’ve wandered far from the track. Was there anything else about The Delta Sweete you wanted to cover or discuss?

Tyler: I just can’t celebrate the invention of it enough.

Travis: Bobbie Gentry sings The Delta Burke

Tyler: If our suppositions are correct, and this album was an ill-fated label concession to a hot new artist, that artist made the absolute most of it.

Travis: I agree even though I find the album itself more hit-or-miss than you do. Still, I liked it a lot. I’d definitely pick it up if I ran across it in a record store. I think I’ll have to listen to it a few more times to see if it transcends “charming curiosity” and makes it to “underappreciated masterpiece.”

I take it you’d also recommend the first LP for someone who enjoyed this one?

Tyler: First LP is really good, yeah.

Easy to find, too, for the collectors out there.

Also easy to find: the Bobbie Gentry-Glen Campbell collaboration from later in 1968.  That one I listened to once and abandoned.  It is downy-soft.

I’m sure it has its defenders.  I mean hell, I’ve got love for some Gordon Lightfoot.