The 12 months is 1969. Rick Corridor, maverick report producer and proprietor of the FAME studio in Muscle Shoals, is working with Bobbie Gentry for the primary time. He asks her: might she write a track for this new album – which might be launched, in April 1970, as Fancy – to match with “Ode To Billie Joe”?
“I don’t know, Rick, but I’ll try,” Bobbie replies.
Two weeks later, she offered “Fancy” to him. It actually did reside as much as “Ode To Billie Joe,” and it grew to become the lynchpin observe of the 1970 album of the identical title.
Hearken to Fancy on Apple Music and Spotify.
Although Gentry’s first two albums, Ode To Billie Joe (1967) and the excellent, avant-garde The Delta Sweete (1968), had contained primarily self-penned materials, Gentry’s personal compositions have been, sadly, changing into rarer on vinyl. Native Gentry (1968) had solely 5 solo or co-written Gentry tracks; Contact ’Em With Love (1969) had simply two; and Bobbie Gentry And Glen Campbell (1968) had just one. As Rick Corridor knew, Fancy was an opportunity to revive her expertise for forceful and emotional narratives.
“Fancy is my statement for women’s lib”
“‘Fancy’ is my strongest statement for women’s lib, if you really listen to it,” Bobbie has mentioned. “I agree wholeheartedly with that movement and all the serious issues that [it stands] for – equality, equal pay, day-care centers, and abortion rights.” The track places poor ladies center-stage: a mom, deserted by her husband, resides in excessive poverty along with her daughter, named Fancy, and a child. To keep away from her daughter struggling the identical destiny, the mom convinces Fancy to make use of the one useful resource she possesses – her youth and sweetness – to flee. “Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy,” advises her mom, “and they’ll be nice to you.”
It’s a tense, usually unsympathetic portrait of the dearth of alternative poor ladies have in America. It’s additionally a robust critique of one of many solely methods a girl might earn good cash and blend within the firm of highly effective males – as their courtesan. However Fancy isn’t ashamed. “I ain’t done bad,” she displays on the finish of the track, wanting over her property portfolio.
“Producing Fancy was like producing a movie score”
Rick Corridor was overjoyed with the track. “To me, producing ‘Fancy’ was like producing a movie score,” he has mentioned. “I had always wanted to produce a record that would paint a picture in your mind.” The 2 started work on the album.
“Fancy” apart, the album didn’t include any additional Gentry originals, however the alternative of songs is impressed: it positively feels full-on Bobbie. Uncooked adolescent sexuality can also be there within the erotic “He Made A Woman Out Of Me” and the soulful “Find ’Em, Fool ’Em And Forget ’Em” (which, this time, sees a father determine meting out his dog-eat-dog worldview to a younger lady).
However sensuality and bare emotion aren’t the one themes on Fancy. There’s a maybe stunning quantity of sentimentality on present, with “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” consistent with the lounge materials on Bobbie Gentry And Glen Campbell alongside a slight, jaunty tackle Laura Nyro’s “Wedding Bell Blues.” A canopy of Harry Nilsson’s “Rainmaker” expertly faucets into Bobbie’s earlier work on The Delta Sweete – all swampy fantasy and small-town marvel. Rick Corridor’s studio band, the FAME gang, backs Bobbie all through. They slink and slither confidently round Bobbie’s feline vocals.
“Morally dubious”
Fancy actually stood out when it was launched, on April 6, 1970. The uncredited portray on the quilt confirmed Bobbie in character as Fancy, each provocative and naïve; the title observe made such an impression that even 4 years later, in 1974, the track was thought of so “morally dubious” that Bobbie was barred from performing it on TV. And, maybe, it introduced again Bobbie’s confidence in her personal songwriting: the follow-up album, 1971’s Patchwork, contained no cowl variations in any respect.
The title observe additionally had a major afterlife. Progressive funk queen Spanky Wilson lined it virtually instantly, stretching it and altering a number of the lyrics (“I may have been born just a plain black girl, but Fancy was my name”). But it surely was by way of nation music aristocracy that it discovered its best success: Gentry’s up to date, Lynn Anderson, recorded the track in 1970; Reba McEntire discovered big success with it in 1990; and even alt.nation outliers The Geraldine Fibbers launched a largely trustworthy cowl in 1994.
Fancy was a pivotal album for Bobbie Gentry. Its success meant that she was now not solely recognized for “Ode To Billie Joe” and but it introduced roaring again precisely what made that track such a phenomenon: vivid, melodramatic storytelling. She ain’t executed unhealthy.
Fancy could be purchased right here.
