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The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

September 21, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Culture, Entertainment, Music, Soundtrack Of Our Lives 

Every Sunday, The Soundtrack of Our Lives looks back at some of the music and performers that were popular around the time Richard Nixon was elected President in 1968.

HARPER VALLEY P.T.A. (TOM T. HALL) performed by JEANNIE C. RILEY

and

ODE TO BILLIE JOE (GENTRY) performed by BOBBIE GENTRY

The Number One song forty years ago this week was a surprise cross-over country hit that celebrated the triumph of an exercise of down-home populist theater, when a free-spirited mini-skirted young widow stood up for herself and faced down the local establishment in a very public forum.

The song was a phenomenal hit which made an almost unprecedented chart leap —from #81 to #7— in one week. Then It shot to Number One on Billboard’s Pop and Country charts —the first time a female country singer had achieved that double play, and something that wouldn’t happen again until 1981 when Dolly Parton wrote and recorded “Nine to Five”.

This was Ms. Riley’s first record — and it earned her the Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal and the Country Music Association’s award for Single of the Year. She was also nominated for Grammys as Best New Artist and Record of the Year.

Within a year she had her own network TV variety special (called Harper Valley USA — go figure). Eventually the song would spawn a movie and an NBC sitcom.

In the same week that RN made his memorable cameo on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and asked the American nation whether they were prepared to sock it to him, the nation’s Number One hit song crescendoed to the final moment when “my mama socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.”

Was that merely a coincidence? Or had RN, two months before the presidential election, truly planted his finger on the pulse of the Zeitgeist? I’m not saying; I’m just asking.

But I digress…..

I want to tell you all a story ’bout a Harper Valley widowed wife
Who had a teenage daughter who attended Harper Valley Junior High.
Well, her daughter came home one afternoon and didn’t even stop to play.
And she said, “Mom, I’ve got a note here from the Harper Valley PTA”.
Well the note said “Mrs. Johnson, you’re wearing your dresses way too high
It’s reported you’ve been drinkin’ and a runnin’ round with men and goin’ wild
And we don’t believe you ought to be bringin’ up your little girl this way”
And it was signed by the Secretary, Harper Valley PTA

Well it happened that the PTA was gonna meet that very afternoon.
And they were sure surprised as Mrs. Johnson wore her miniskirt into the room
And as she walked up to the blackboard I can still recall the words she had to say
She said “I’d like to address this meeting of the Harper Valley PTA.”

Now there’s Bobby Taylor sittin’ there and seven times he’s asked me for a date.
And Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lot of ice whenever he’s away.
And Mr. Baker can you tell us why your secretary had to leave this town?
And shouldn’t widow Jones be told to keep her window shades all pulled completely down?

Well, Mr. Harper couldn’t be here ’cause he’s stayed too long in Kelly’s bar again.
And if you smell Shirley Thompson’s breath you’ll find she’s had a little nip of gin.
And then you have the nerve to tell me as a mother you think that I ain’t fit.
Well this is just a little Peyton Place and you’re all Harper Valley hypocrites.

Now I wouldn’t put you on because it really did, it happened just this way.
The day my Mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA.

In those more innocent times, even in 1968, eleven years after its publication, the name alone of Grace Metalious’ novel -–Peyton Place — was effective shorthand for the seamy side of small-town life.

Incidentally, unless I’m wrong (which, I think we all agree, is highly unlikely) the fancy-britched and highly observant dude to whom Ms. Riley returns the microphone is “Whispering” Bill Anderson — an Opry and TNN fixture and one country music’s most celebrated singer-songwriters.

His biggest hit was 1963 the country-pop crossover song “Still“. His nickname “Whispering” was bestowed because of his distinctive vocal delivery.  His other trademark was his wardrobe.  A few years later, when he appeared on the popular TV game show To Tell The Truth, one of the celebrity panelists asked him “Why are you wearing this costume?”  He replied, “Well, it’s all I had.”

In 1995, Billboard named four of his songs among the Top 20 Country Songs of the past 35 years — the only composer to have that number on the list.

The song “Harper Valley P.T.A.” was written by another prolific and legendary Nashville singer and song writer, Tom T. Hall.  The 27-year old got his big break in 1963 when Jimmy C. Newman recorded his song “DJ for a Day“.

Among Mr. Hall’s specialties were story songs (like “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” and “Harper Valley” and humorous songs (like “I Like Beer“).He has said that the inspiration for the title came from the Harpeth Valley Elementary School in Bellevue, Tennessee, not far from his home in a nearby town.  He liked the sound of it —Harpeth Valley— and thought he could make good use of it in a song.

One of his early hits was “Ravishing Ruby”.  (See if you can spot the young Ron Ziegler seated at the table over Mr. Hall’s right shoulder.  OK, a young Ron-Ziegler look-alike.)

JEANNIE C. RILEY WAS BORN IN TEXAS BUT MOVED TO NASHVILLE WITH HER HUSBAND and young daughter after she received a letter from a producer who had heard her demo tape and thought she could be successful.  It took a couple of years working as a secretary at a record company and submitting a lot of demos before she was paired with Tom T. Hall’s new song about the swinging widow and her teenage daughter.

She received another Grammy nomination as Best Female Vocalist in 1969 for her song “The Back Side of Dallas“.  And that year she had another country Number One with “The Girl Most Likely” — a Harper-lite song by Myra Smith and Margaret Lewis:

Ms. Riley had some later hits, although none achieved —how could they— the extraordinary success of her debut disk.  In addition to her good looks she had a winning personality and appeared as a guest on many TV variety shows.

Not exactly a precursor to “Harper Valley P.T.A.” — but more like a  Southern Gothic branch of the same live oak — was Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 Number One single and album hit “Ode to Billie Joe”.  In fact, “Harper Valley” was written because Margie Singleton asked Tom T. Hall to write her a story song like “Ode to Billie Joe”.

“Harper Valley” presumably ended happily — at least for the two members of the Johnson family.  But “Billie Joe” —a short story set to music— pretty much ended in general disaster for almost everyone concerned.  Only Brother and Becky Thompson emerge with even the semblance of a chance for happiness.

“Ode to Billie Joe” knocked The Doors’ “Light My Fire” and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band out of their respective Number One spots on Billboard’s singles and album Hot 100.

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.

This clip, from The Smothers Brothers Show, provides an opportunity to see Ms. Gentry at work but doesn’t do justice to the record — the subtleties of which can be heard to better advantage  here.

If the song is nothing short of superb, the languidly menacing arrangement, with its slinkily swooning strings, is little short of spectacular.  It’s the work of Jimmie Haskell who won the Best Arranger of the Year Grammy for it; as he would for Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”.

The song spawned endless articles and discussions —not to mention a movie that posited a controversial answer to the central questions.

When Ms. Gentry told Summer of ‘42 novelist-screenwriter Herman Raucher that when she wrote the song she had no idea what was being thrown off the bridge or why, he supplied his own very 1975 and very unsatisfactory answer, proving once again that where fiction is concerned, imagination trumps fact.  At least he had the courtesy to change the spelling of Billie Joe’s name— presumably in order to protect the not guilty.

Even Rolling Stone, which placed “Ode to Billie Joe” as Number 412 of its Top 500 Songs Of All Time, wanted answers: “Once and for all: exactly what did Billie Joe throw off the Tallahatchee Bridge, and why did he jump himself? Gentry never revealed the secret of this spooky country blues. “The real message,” she said, “revolves around the way the nonchalant family talks about the suicide.”

Bobbie Gentry was in her early twenties when she wrote the song.  She was drawing deep on her remembered musical and storytelling roots from Chickasaw County, Mississippi.  As a young teenager she moved to live with her mother to Arcadia, California.  She entered UCLA as a philosophy major but transferred to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music.

Her great comeliness attracted early attention.  Bob Hope encouraged her to perform in the Follies Bergeres nightclub in Las Vegas; and she briefly married to Reno casino-mogul Bill Harrah.

Bobbie Gentry was one of the emerging new breed of female singer-songwriters who would write and produce her own material.  In addition to “Billie Joe” she had nine singles that made Billboard’s Top 100 and she became a favored performer on TV variety shows, including one of her own.

In 1970 she had a hit (#26 on the Country and #31 on the Pop Charts) with “Fancy”, and it garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Female Vocalist.   The song, from the eponymous protagonist to the arrangement, was pretty much a “Billie Joe” clone.

But for a pop song at that particular point in time, the song touched a number of hot-button issues.  Ms. Gentry told an interviewer that “‘Fancy’ is my strongest statement for women’s lib.  If you really listen to it.  I agree wholeheartedly with that movement and all the serious issues that they stand for — equality, equal pay, day care centers, and abortion rights.”

The success of the “Ode to Billie Joe” and the nationwide speculation about its meaning were something completely new in American popular culture.  In that respect its only peer is McLean’s “Miss American Pie” which came four years later.  The impact of Miss Gentry’s song was sufficient to lead Bob Dylan to write a parody of its mundane setting of dramatic events.

In his “Clothesline Saga” a succession of pedestrian observations about family laundry are punctuated by the news that “The Vice-President’s gone mad!”.

At that time the Vice President was Hubert Humphrey.  Although he was undoubtedly being driven bonkers by LBJ’s conduct of the war and being made highly nervous by Robert Kennedy’s maneuverings, as well as by RN’s zeroing in on the Republican nomination, Mr. Dylan may have been referring to another vice president. After all, his target was Ms. Gentry, not Mr. Humphrey.

After a while we took in the clothes,
Nobody said very much.
Just some old wild shirts and a couple pairs of pants
Which nobody really wanted to touch.
Mama come in and picked up a book
An’ Papa asked her what it was.
Someone else asked, “What do you care?”
Papa said, “Well, just because.”
Then they started to take back their clothes,
Hang ‘em on the line.
It was January the thirtieth
And everybody was feelin’ fine.

The next day everybody got up
Seein’ if the clothes were dry.
The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed,
Mama, of course, she said, “Hi!”
“Have you heard the news?” he said, with a grin,
“The Vice-President’s gone mad!”
“Where?” “Downtown.” “When?” “Last night.”
“Hmm, say, that’s too bad!”
“Well, there’s nothin’ we can do about it,” said the neighbor,
“It’s just somethin’ we’re gonna have to forget.”
“Yes, I guess so,” said Ma,
Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet.

I reached up, touched my shirt,
And the neighbor said, “Are those clothes yours?”
I said, “Some of ‘em, not all of ‘em.”
He said, “Ya always help out around here with the chores?”
I said, “Sometime, not all the time.”
Then my neighbor, he blew his nose
Just as papa yelled outside,
“Mama wants you t’ come back in the house and bring them clothes.”
Well, I just do what I’m told,
So, I did it, of course.
I went back in the house and Mama met me
And then I shut all the doors.

All these years later —in 2008— the song continues to be covered by country and pop artists, and the speculation about what transpired on that damned bridge continues.

In fact, Bobbie Gentry’s version of the song she wrote and produced is all but inimitable. (And besides, when you have the Mona Lisa easily available who needs reproductions?)  Most attempts fall embarrassingly —and some ludicrously— flat.  (What were Frank Sinatra and Ella FItzgerald thinking?)

One of the more inventive covers —which is actually moving in its own interesting way— comes from Sinead O’Connor.  Perhaps the gothic elements of Carroll County and County Cork share some interpretational empathies.



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