Following on from her show at The Caravan Music Club and Out On The Weekend 2021 Helen Ryder will present an intimate duo show of her favourite Bobbie Gentry songs accompanied by special guest Lachlan Bryan on guitar for the Drunken Poet’s Tuesday Tribute night.
Gentry's first single Ode To Billie Joe, released in 1967, created the haunting southern gothic style she became famous for and is considered one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Hailing from Chickasaw County, Mississippi, her career spanned seventeen years with seven studio albums, 30 compilation albums, a duet album with Glen Campbell and a live album from her BBC TV show.
Blessed with a voice that could dig deep on country soul like Mississippi Delta or tender and sultry on pop ballads like Morning Glory, Gentry remains ever influential and enduring today, especially with the release of her 2018 boxset; the 2019 reinterpretation of Delta Sweete by Mercury Rev featuring the likes of Lucinda Williams.
This one hour performance includes the fascinating and mysterious story of one of the first female singer songwriters to write, record and produce her own material, who in Roseanne Cash’s words ‘ruled the airwaves in 1967 with her #1 hit Ode To Billie Joe.