Track listing
Show track credits
- A1 Sweete Peony 2:26
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songwriter
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- A2 Casket Vignette 2:34
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songwriter
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- A3 Come Away Melinda 3:21
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songwriter
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songwriter
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- A4 The Fool on the Hill 3:44
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songwriter
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songwriter
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- A5 Papa's Medicine Show 3:50
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songwriter
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- A6 Ace Insurance Man 3:33
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songwriter
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- B1 Recollection 2:10
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songwriter
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- B2 Sittin' Pretty 3:19
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songwriter
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songwriter
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- B3 Eleanor Rigby 2:27
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songwriter
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songwriter
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- B4 Peaceful 2:51
- B5 Here, There and Everywhere 2:28
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songwriter
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songwriter
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songwriter
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- Total length: 32:43
Rate/Catalog
Catalog
Set listening
Review
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6 Issues
- Release view [combined information for all issues]
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Local Gentry [p] 33 rpm
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Local Gentry 33 rpm, Mono
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Local Gentry 33 rpm
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Local Gentry 33 rpm
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1971
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10 Reviews
Breathtaking record. Three decades out of print, its non-availability is starting to seem like book burning.
Published
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A1
Sweete Peony
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A2
Casket Vignette
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A3
Come Away Melinda
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A4
The Fool on the Hill
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A5
Papa's Medicine Show
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A6
Ace Insurance Man
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B1
Recollection
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B2
Sittin' Pretty
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B3
Eleanor Rigby
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B4
Peaceful
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B5
Here, There and Everywhere
It's unfortunate to see less songs written by Gentry, but this album manages to be cohesive in theme. At its core, it's an exploration of human nature. Every song is a self-contained vignette revealing a different side of the human experience.
There's an interesting contrast between the light-hearted, playful sound and often solemn subjects. Many songs tackle death itself. "Recollection" shows a young girl who doesn't understand the concept of mortality and the death she sees around her. The cover "Papa's Medicine Show" is tonally dissonant with the narrator singer about her families many wares with this wacky, boiant sound. Then it suddenly is slow and melancholic. "Eleanor Rigby" fits snugly into the album, and I think, is an excellent cover.
"Casket Vignette" is the crowning jewel of this aspect. It's relaxed, loungey with a flute. The lyrics are so multi-layered. I first notice the lyrics analyzing the prospect of death. "Everybody wants to go to heaven, Miss Morgan /
But nobody wants to die." Then you start to see the patronizing way in which the narrator treats the widow. Oh, what a tragedy!, but then talking about how she'll get a great payment plan. However, I noticed that the widow is described with dry eyes, and she laughs at the narrator, which makes you question her thought process. Does she really care about her fiance's death? Though she may be laughing because she's so over these fake people.
Besides songs about death, there are many other great tunes. The major highlights are the Gentry originals; the "Ace Insurance Man" is small-town gossip harkening back to The Delta Sweete, same with "Sweet Peony." With the absurd lyrics and fantastic composition, "Sittin' Pretty" is the true standout.
The sound is great too; Again, it's more smoothed-out and poppish, but it doesn't feel out of place. The melodies continue to be captivating, and with a soft guitar and flute creates a soothing atmosphere. Though the fast-pace rhythm of "Sweet Peony," "Ace Insurance Man," and "Sittin' Pretty" is a great addition.
Review written September 14th, 2023.
Published
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Perhaps even higher highs than her last, though ever-so-slightly lower lows (if you can call 'em that).
I once observed, in a group chat, that not too many bands or artist cover the Beatles. The rest of the group chat quickly corrected me: plenty of bands do, in fact, cover the Beatles. It's just that most of those bands are terrible, and we've all collectively managed to memory-hole the vast majority of those covers into oblivion. Bobbie Gentry, I guess, is an exception. She's got three Beatles covers on this album, which was certainly an ambitious move for a (debatably) country girl whose music was mostly defined by its American Southernness. Nonetheless, if I were asked to pinpoint anyone who might have the talent to pull off such a feat, I'd be far more likely to suggest Bobbie Gentry than, say, Wayne Coyne.
I'll confess I'm not too big on her cover of "Here, There and Everywhere". Without the production details and woozy psychedelic atmosphere of the original, it just kinda glides by without doing much, and I usually space out a little bit when I'm listening to it. It's not bad, but it doesn't offer much to either grab or hold your attention, which feels like a strange thing to say about a Beatles song in any context. Her version of "The Fool on the Hill" is better, and I certainly like the way its stop-start riff blossoms into intricate fingerpicking and then eventually big, sweeping string arrangements as the song progresses, but the lack of the original psychedelics kinda deprives the lyrics of the context they need to, uh, not sound like shit. They certainly contrast most unfavorably with Bobbie's various originals on the album, which isn't really their fault - what did you expect when you take a slice of psychedelic dadaism from its home and force it to live among the well-developed, intricate folk storytelling songs? There are lots of other Beatles songs that I'm sure would have fit much better with Bobbie's style.
Thankfully, one of those does in fact show up on the album. Bobbie Gentry's "Eleanor Rigby" probably isn't actively better than the original, but it's at least on the same level, and translates perfectly into the ornate folk style she's got going on this album. The frantically-descending guitar riff she uses as the base for her song, as well as the similarly frantic organ solo, serve to subtly transform it from a despairing lament to something more fearfully worried. If the original was a sad reflection on mortality, this is anxiety over it, as if Bobbie is looking at Eleanor Rigby's grave and feeling no small queasy fear that such a fate may await her if she is not careful. It actually fits just fine into the album as a whole, which, for reasons I'm not sure I'd like to know, contains a lot of songs about death.
"Casket Vignette" is the most memorable of these, and it's one of her best songs. If she'd never covered "Eleanor Rigby", this'd have done just fine as her take on the concept anyway, complete with the vaguely Beatles-esque melody (though I can't quite figure out which of them it most reminds me of) and the mostly orchestral production. I love the way the light strings repeat themselves over and over, as if stuck on a loop, as she runs through the undertaker's list of grotesque salesman techniques. The lady he's upselling the coffins to doesn't seem particularly bereaved, and I'm okay with not knowing why. As those clinically tranquil strings fill the air, you get the sense you're listening to a tale about inhumanity on at least two levels; either the woman murdered her perfectly good fiance for presumable personal gain, or he was a monster whose death left her finally free. Bobbie's content to let you fill in the blanks yourself.
"Recollection" is another vignette of the type Bobbie is so good at. Musically it's another of her trademark lush folk songs, complete with the usual gorgeous fingerpicking and delicate strings, and the melody in the resolution of each verse reminds me a little of "She's Leaving Home", which I can't take as anything other than an intentional reference considering the context. Either way, it's very catchy and very pretty, and it's a perfect delivery vehicle for the lyrics, which are a depiction of what must be just about five minutes of a funeral through the eyes of a little girl who's too young to understand it. Her lyrics, as usual, are vividly visual: "Outside the crystal icicles shine bright/ Casting a prism, reflecting the light/ That sends rainbows dancing across the brow/ Of a pastor in prayer". There's not necessarily a big message to the whole thing, but the ground is left open for you to interpret one if you want. Myself, I see a story about the vastly different ways different people can experience the same events, but there's room for more if you're in the mood to find it.
A couple of the songs trick you into thinking they're gonna be optimistic, but throw in a plot twist at the last minute. "Peaceful" (a cover of a Kenny Rankin song from an album that doesn't even have a Wikipedia page) isn't quite one of her usual folk songs, having a quiet rocky energy behind its lushness, but it nonetheless is mostly as the title suggests, with the usual lovely guitar and string arrangements being backed up by a particularly beautiful flute. The spectre of mortality, though, creeps inevitably in at the end: "I had a son while on the run/ His love put a tear in my eye/ But somehow I know if he'd lived to grow/ He would've been a pretty nice guy". There's also "Papa's Medicine Show", written for her by the clearly very talented Jamie Horton, which is mostly quite a pleasant reminisce on a family's unique experience growing up together as a band of, effectively, snake oil salesmen. I could do with a bit more continuity between the sparse, downbeat verses and the upbeat, bouncy chorus, but it's still one of the catchiest tunes on the album, and the eventual death of the father in the story always draws mixed feelings from me. It's interesting to see such a dishonorable profession portrayed in such a homely, loving way, full of the same nostalgia everyone has for their old family days, and while it may not be a Bobbie original I can certainly see why she chose it. Moral ambiguity is kind of her thing, after all.
There's also another cover on here: "Come Away Melinda", a classic protest song most famous for its very self-impressed Uriah Heep interpretation. This one's certainly much better than that, mostly because Bobbie's version of the melody contains some subtle differences that make it much more affecting. Her quiet, reflective singing voice doesn't hurt, either, even if I could maybe do without the little martial drums that momentarily come in every time she mentions the war. Either way, it affords the pain and bereavement of war the respect it deserves, and it works all the better for not sounding anything like one's average anti-war protest song.
Is that all the songs about death? Well, not quite. "Ace Insurance Man" is kind of ambiguous, being as it does contain what seems to be quite a severe car crash, but the only named victims are half a dozen chickens and a prize hog. The lyrics are a pretty darkly amusing tale about the predatory nature of insurance grifters in the rural South, and the song is a slightly showtuney blues-rock tune built mostly around horns and an organ, but it could really do with a hook and it just doesn't have one. The hilarious affectations she puts on while singing it will grab your attention every now and then, and it's propulsive enough, but I feel like it could have been a little better. I still like it, but with Bobbie, my standards are high. Can you blame me? She has a habit of living up to them!
Anyway, that is all the songs about death. Coupled with those other two Beatles covers, that's nearly the entire album! There are just two songs left. One of them, "Sittin' Pretty", appears to be mostly nonsense lyrically, but it's musically good fun, being a pretty solid blend of irreverent blues-rock songwriting with her usual beautiful string-and-flute arrangements. Not a lot of artists can pull off a thing like that, but Bobbie makes it sound like the most natural thing in the world, and it's worth remembering not to take that for granted.
Last, we come to the first song on the record. "Sweete Peony" is another one of those peculiarly Bobbie-style bluesy acoustic songs that sounds kind of like what would happen if one reverse-engineered American blues rock into the contemporary folk of the era, and it's one of the shortest songs on the album, but that doesn't matter, because it's got what may quietly be the catchiest damn hook she ever did write. The way she flows so confidently into the chorus after those effortlessly calm and collected verses is just badass, and the fact that the song carries so much energy despite all being so quiet is really something. That chorus is something of an efficient marvel; it's incredibly short, being composed of just a brief line sung twice in a row, but it forms such a melodically satisfying resolution to the verses and packs so much of her cool vocal charisma that it's impossible not to get it stuck in your head eternally after a couple of listens. It's possibly my favourite song on the album, and it always reminds me of what I like best about Bobbie. I really can't think of any other artists who made songs that sound much like it. Truly unique artists are rare, and Bobbie absolutely was one.
So, what's the sum total here? A few songs that are, at worst, kind of uninteresting and then a whole heap of excellent shit. Another triumph, in other words, to the point where it's almost starting to get boring. Your weekly reminder to listen to this woman's music, 'cos you're beautiful and you deserve it.
(Oh, and I'm just playin', Wayne. You know I love you.)
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3 Beatles covers on 1 single album, seriously?! That's too much for me and the syrupy strings arrangements aren't helping either. Rest of it has gone in a 60's poppy way that I'm not enjoying that much so yeah, overall a bit of a disappointment compare to the earlier releases.
Published
One of my favorite albums - it just shows how much I enjoy some strange,left-field musicians removed from mainstream - Gentry recorded this album in 1968. and it has absolutely nothing to do with what we know as country music,it's actually some curious combination of genres where acoustic singer/songwriter folk goes into gothic baroque pop and music is positively moody & has some clever lyrics ("Casket vignette") that only Gentry would have done.
When you think of subjects than-current country queens touched (love,divorce,house,stand by your man) Gentry showed intelligence and taste like no other singer - there are simply too many highlights to mention here,but she really digs some unexpected choices (poetic,anti-war "Come away Melinda") and the way she gently sings these songs (calm and composed whisper as opposite to full-blown drama we usually associate with country music) is definitely haunting - I checked this out of curiosity at first (I only knew Gentry from her big hit,not included here) and would you believe,after listening of zillion other people's albums I found myself returning to this one again and again.
And I don't even mind Gentry singing "Beatles" covers - although I am honestly sick and tired of these songs - since she sings them so well that it sounds she wrote them herself.Her "Eleanor Rigby" fits perfectly next to characters she normally sings and it makes obvious choice,it might be said that the whole album is kind of Eleanor Rigby town with quirky people and their lives.
So far,so good - I really love this album - must admit it made me quite fan,if I happen to find more of Gentry,you bet I will continue listening her without thinking twice - if they ever release Bobby Gentry box set,I would consider investing in it.
When you think of subjects than-current country queens touched (love,divorce,house,stand by your man) Gentry showed intelligence and taste like no other singer - there are simply too many highlights to mention here,but she really digs some unexpected choices (poetic,anti-war "Come away Melinda") and the way she gently sings these songs (calm and composed whisper as opposite to full-blown drama we usually associate with country music) is definitely haunting - I checked this out of curiosity at first (I only knew Gentry from her big hit,not included here) and would you believe,after listening of zillion other people's albums I found myself returning to this one again and again.
And I don't even mind Gentry singing "Beatles" covers - although I am honestly sick and tired of these songs - since she sings them so well that it sounds she wrote them herself.Her "Eleanor Rigby" fits perfectly next to characters she normally sings and it makes obvious choice,it might be said that the whole album is kind of Eleanor Rigby town with quirky people and their lives.
So far,so good - I really love this album - must admit it made me quite fan,if I happen to find more of Gentry,you bet I will continue listening her without thinking twice - if they ever release Bobby Gentry box set,I would consider investing in it.
Published
Fantastic album which I play and play. Obviously I'd prefer an album made up entirely of Bobbie's own compositions, but her treatment of others' songs is wonderful, a must listen to album for any music lover.
Published
What a cover....... she's still got it, and here she tackles some beatles just for fun or so!
Wonder why she named it "Local"? when most songtitles and cover gives an "Urban" feeling!
Wonder why she named it "Local"? when most songtitles and cover gives an "Urban" feeling!
Published
The back cover of the album makes this statement, "and now Bobbie's reflections of the Local Gentry". It's a bad pun, but it does describe the songs that make up this album. Each song is about people and how they see the world. If you liked "Ode To Billie Joe", give this album a listen. You'll be glad you did.
Published
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Catalog
22 May 2024
6 May 2024
4 May 2024
2 May 2024
19 Apr 2024
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A1
Sweete Peony
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A2
Casket Vignette
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A3
Come Away Melinda
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A4
The Fool on the Hill
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A5
Papa's Medicine Show
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A6
Ace Insurance Man
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B1
Recollection
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B2
Sittin' Pretty
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B3
Eleanor Rigby
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B4
Peaceful
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B5
Here, There and Everywhere
15 Apr 2024
5 Apr 2024
31 Mar 2024
29 Mar 2024
27 Mar 2024
28 Feb 2024
5 Feb 2024
1 Feb 2024
22 Jan 2024
16 Dec 2023
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