Listening to Bobbie Gentry... part 4

Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell (1968)

Side one
1."Less of Me" (Glen Campbell)
2."Little Green Apples" (Bob Russell)
3."Gentle on My Mind" (John Hartford)
4."Heart to Heart Talk" (Lee Ross)
5."My Elusive Dreams" (Curly Putman, Billy Sherrill)
6."(It's Only Your) Imagination" (Campbell)

Side two
1."Mornin' Glory" (Bobbie Gentry)
2."Terrible Tangled Web" (Billy Mize)
3."Sunday Mornin'" (Margo Guryan)
4."Let It Be Me" (Gilbert Bécaud, Mann Curtis, Pierre Delanoé)
5."Scarborough Fair/Canticle" (traditional, arranged by Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel)

Local Gentry didn't bring the hoped for success, so more desperate measures were needed. I'm not a fan of this album, it aims for a steady mediocrity and stays there. 'Let it be me' is the only one I'd remember.

First, it's not a Bobbie Gentry album. There's one of her songs, but she doesn't play on the album, doesn't arrange. She just shows up on each song to sing a few lines and leaves the rest of it to Glen Campbell and his band. And her singing doesn't sound completely interested to me either, just professional.

Second, it's not a top class Glen Campbell album either. He did a lot better.

It's a really 'straight' record, and what I love about Bobbie, is that it's never ever straight, but always winded. But on the upside, without this album her career probably would've ended there. As it is, it brought her back into the public eye a little with the 'Let it be me' single. She managed to seize the moment with her next solo single, and so she got the chance to record what I feel is the best music of her career over her next three albums.