Ode to Billie Joe

Few artists can say they knocked the Beatles off their pedestal, but Bobbie Gentry is one of them. The Mississippi-born singer-songwriter with the one-of-a-kind voice and similarly singular songwriting perspective scored a No. 1 album with her debut Ode to Billie Joe in 1967, temporarily ousting the Fab Four’s seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from a weeks-long stint atop the Billboard 200.