Roberta Lee Streeter (July 27, 1942), aka Bobbie Gentry, is an American
singer-songwriter and country performer, mostly known for her 1967 hit, “Ode to
Billie Joe.” Born into a poor family in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, she wrote
her first song at the age of 7 after her grandmother traded one of the family’s
milk cows for a piano. She also learnt how to play the piano and the banjo while
living with her father in Greenwood, Mississippi. At the age of 13, she moved to
Palm Springs with her mother, only to relocate to Los Angeles a few years later.
There, she studied philosophy ...