Country music has always been home to strong women who made their names with feminist and protofeminist songs — think Kitty Wells’ ‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’, Loretta Lynn’s ‘The Pill’ ...

When the needle dropped you would have heard the insistent strum of what sounded like a small guitar in a big room, and then the woozy swoop of a string section as it slid down along a minor scale.

The 60s star – who didn’t just write her own songs but had her own TV show, made her own clothes and painted her own album art – could count Elvis and, later, Taylor Swift as fans. So why did she ...

Music fans know the importance of Friday. “It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.” That is the opening line of one of music’s most discussed, examined and appreciated songs — “Ode to ...

In July of 1967, Capitol Records released “Ode to Billie Joe,” a spooky wisp of a song by an unknown artist named Bobbie Gentry. Industry wisdom said “Ode” was too dark, too long, too different to get ...

This is not a story about what happened to Bobbie Gentry. Plenty have attempted to unravel that mystery, which continues to be dissected every few years by journalists and admirers who can’t fathom ...

Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Today we revisit Bobbie Gentry’s 1968 album, a daring, atmospheric, ...

The tenuous nature of fame means that several artists have walked away from the ACM Awards never to be seen again, but Bobbie Gentry may be the only country singer to have done it so deliberately. On ...