Bobbie Gentry The Girl From Chickasaw County 2LP

TAS Rated 3.5/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the December 2022 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

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Following the global success of UMC's first major retrospective of the enigmatic Bobbie Gentry, the Grammy-nominated 8CD box The Girl from Chickasaw County, comes this 2LP highlights edition that includes extracts from all seven of Gentry's studio albums supplemented by the cream of the previously unreleased recordings including tracks from her "lost" jazz album, The Windows of the World, which was a standout vinyl release of RSD 2021, and the deluxe edition of her classic album The Delta Sweete. Other outtakes, demos, rarities and live performances taken from her celebrated series for the BBC are also included. This highlights edition has once again been mastered by compiler Andrew Batt and reprises the specially commissioned box set cover illustration by David Downton. This release also includes new sleeve notes and many of the rare and unseen photos included in the box set; the LP package comes with a 12"x 12" four-sided insert.

Musical highlights include the classic original of "Ode to Billie Joe," alternative versions of swamp funk movers "Mississippi Delta" and "Touch Em' with Love," "Mornin' Glory" from The Delta Sweete, her classy Glen Campbell duet "Let It Be Me," her definitive "Hushabye Mountain," pop soul triumph "Fancy," and the melancholy "Lookin In" from her final album. In addition, there are superb acoustic demos of originals like "Hurry, Tuesday Child" and "Seasons Come, Seasons Go," new songs that never came out like "Smoke" and "Joanne" alongside essential covers of "Conspiracy of Homer Jones" and "God Bless the Child."

This collection gives a satisfying cross section of Bobbie's recording career, touching on the commercial high points whilst also taking in some of the exceptional unreleased material singled out by music critics when the box set was released back in 2018. For the committed collector, a number of the recordings have been remixed from the multi-tracks especially for this release including "Caskette Vignette" and "Recollection."

One of the most underrated songwriters of the 20th century.

Her voice remains intoxicating.

A stunning feat of excavation.

The real clincher is the rare and unreleased recordings.

Bobbie Gentry is an enigma of genre, a performer who never sat firmly in country, pop, jazz, soul, or blues, performing a unique brand of country-pop that stood out from others of the day. One of the strengths of The Girl From Chickasaw County is that it emphasizes this aspect of Gentry's musicianship in both song selection and in the thorough, informative liner notes... Across this compilation's four sides, The Girl From Chickasaw County brings together Gentry's finest moments and unheard snippets in alternate takes that highlight the process of an often under-appreciated female singer-songwriter in the lineage of country-pop.