Bobbie Gentry, born Roberta Lee Streeter on July 27, 1944, in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, is a renowned country singer and songwriter. Raised in poverty on her grandparents' farm, Gentry's early life was marked by her parents' divorce and her subsequent move to live with her father in Greenwood, Mississippi, and later with her mother in Palm Springs, California. She learned to play several instruments, including the piano, banjo, guitar, bass, and vibes, and began performing at a country club during high school.

Gentry adopted her stage name from the 1952 movie "Ruby Gentry" at the age of 14. She briefly worked as a dancer and singer in Las Vegas before returning to California to study philosophy at UCLA and music at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. Her breakthrough came in 1967 with the hit song "Ode to Billie Joe," which topped the Billboard pop charts for a month and earned her three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist.

Throughout her career, Gentry released several successful songs, including "Fancy," which became a Top 30 hit. She also found success in Europe with "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" and "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head." In the late 1960s, she headlined a Las Vegas revue show, and in 1974, she hosted her own TV variety show.

Gentry was married three times: to William Fisk Harrah, Tom Toutant, and Jim Stafford, with whom she had a child, Tyler Gentry Stafford. She retired from the music industry in the late 1970s and later ran her own TV production company in Los Angeles. Bobbie Gentry's contributions to music have been recognized with her induction into the Mississippi Musician's Hall of Fame in 2008. As of December 2018, she resided in Memphis, Tennessee.