Capitol 2830
Producer: Kelly Gordon
Track listing: Mississippi Delta / I Saw an Angel Die / Chickasaw County Child / Sunday Best / Niki Hoeky / Papa, Won’t You Let Me Go to Town with You / Bugs / Hurry, Tuesday Child / Lazy Willie / Ode to Billie Joe
October 14, 1967
2 weeks
Arranger/conductor Jimmie Haskell, whose first claim to fame was his work with Ricky Nelson, still remembers the call. “A producer named Kelly Gordon called me and said, ‘Come on over, because I just signed a girl and I want you to throw some strings on her record.'” When Haskell reported to Capitol Records studios, he was introduced to a young singer named Bobbie Gentry. “I was told that Capitol had just brought a master from her called ‘Mississippi Delta,’ which was a gravel-voiced Southern rocker,” Haskell says. However, it wasn’t that song that would take Gentry to the top of the single and album charts. It was the track that was supposed to be the B-side, “Ode to Billie Joe,” which featured Gentry singing and playing a five-string Martin guitar.
Without giving any specific instructions, Gordon asked Haskell to cover the B-side with strings “so we won’t be embarrassed to release it.” In his previous arranging stints, Haskell was provided with demos to serve as a guide. “So I had to come up with my own thoughts on the song,” Haskell says. “To me it sounded like a movie, because the song has a great story. I used the strings like I was scoring a film, to heighten the images that she was singing about.”
Shortly after the record was finished, the A&R staff at Capitol met and decided that “Ode to Billie Joe” should be an A-side, except there was one minor problem: the song, which ran four minutes and 15 seconds, was longer than the usual single. “Voyle Gilmore, who was the head of A&R for Capitol Records, asked Kelly why he made the single so long,” Haskell recalls. “So Kelly asked him why he decided to make it the A-side.”
As it turned out, the length wasn’t a problem. On August 26, 1967, less than a month after the song debuted on the Hot 100, “Ode to Billie Joe” hit Number One. Its popularity set the stage for Gentry’s hit album, named for the Number One single.
With the single already burning up the charts, the album was recorded quickly. “I did the tracks in a double session in one day,” Haskell says. “After I finished conducting the arrangements, Bobbie did the vocals and then Kelly did the mixdowns. The entire album was completed in approximately a week. The artwork took longer than that,” Haskell quips.
Ode to Billie Joe hit the top of the album chart in its fifth week; nearly two months after the single first topped the Hot 100. Aside from the unforgettable title track, which inspired a 1976 film based on the song’s mysterious lyrics, Ode to Billie Joe is notable for another reason. It’s the album that knocked Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from the summit after its 15-week stay at the top.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of October 14, 1967
1. Ode to Billie Joe, Bobbie Gentry
2. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Club Band, The Beatles
3. Diana Ross and the Supremes Greatest Hits, Diana Ross and the Supremes
4. The Doors, The Doors
5. Aretha Arrives, Aretha Franklin