Happy Billy Jo McAllister Day Everyone

Do any of your kids ever get it?

You mean this ode thing...

Thanks for pointing it out to us! I knew the date had some importance, but couldn't quite place it.

My radio d-j god, Bob Stroud, does a 3 hour radio show every Sunday morning of obscure music of the 60s and 70 on an FM station in Chicago. This morning he "time-warped" June 3, 1967 --3 hours of what was in "our" (Chicago) radio on this date back then...and he also played the entire Sargeant Pepper album to commemorate 40 years ago, June 1. On a normal day (not a time-warp), he would have made some mention of Billie Jo and probably would have played it. I did hear the song twice today, though, on an oldies station. It still sounds good!!!

08 Dad: No, they don't get it but after I sing a few bars a few might say, "my dad's always listening to the oldies station," or "dude, you're weird."

Bobbie Gentry

Just in case you want to sing along:

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door "Y'all remember to wipe your feet"
And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge"
"Today Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
"Well, Billie Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"
"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow"
And Mama said it was shame about Billie Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right"
"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"
"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"
"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite"
"That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today"
"Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way"
"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge"
"And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billie Joe
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And where is Bobbie Gentry today?

Little Bobbie Lee is over to the Streeter place.

(Bobbie Gentry was born Roberta Streeter on July 17, 1944, in Chickasaw County, Mississippi.)