I was given this piece to post by long-time Forgotten Hits Reader Jack Levin with the strict instruction that it should ONLY be posted on a "Sleepy, Dusty Delta Day" ... so today seemed somewhat appropriate!!!
Since I've been out of commission for almost two years now, due to six major surgeries during that period, I've had a lot of spare time.
As a result I dispatched my Rock And Roll Never Forgets investigative reporting team to find out the REAL reason behind Billie Joe McAllister's passing on the third of June.
Originally, Bobbie Gentry's opus was seven minutes long. What was cut out? Did The Powers That Be threaten Bobbie if she told the complete truth? Something isn't right.
So my team has spent their time analyzing the facts.
They went to the Tallahatchie Bridge, the scene of the crime.
They took pictures of the approach, the getaway, not to mention the aerial photography. They even took 27 8 x 10 color glossy photographs, with circles and arrows, explaining what each one was.
They went to Tupelo to meet Bobbie's brother and his wife, Becky Thompson. Their store specializes in Elvis memorabilia these days. If you've ever been to Tupelo, every business is about Elvis.
However, he was not a fountain of information in regards to Billie Joe ... although it seemed that he knows more than he let on.
Of course, lotsa luck in getting Bobbie to talk about anything. It just seems that given the shallow depth of the river, and the distance between the bridge and the river, it just doesn't jive with him jumping off and drowning. Maybe if he dove head first and landed head first in the mud, but it's not likely.
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, was interviewed. It looked like he was trying to protect Bobbie. Was Billie Joe pushed, or was he murdered somewhere else, and the whole jumping off the bridge story is just a cover up?
Could Bobbie's dad have done it? Maybe he was pissed off because Billie Joe knocked up his daughter. We'll never know as he caught a virus (Covid?) and died the following spring. (Forensics in 1967 were not what they are today, so there is nothing to be learned there.)
They just assumed that Billie was just some stupid kid who decided to end it all.
In short, almost everyone involved is dead now ... and unless Bobbie wants to write a tell all book, we'll probably never know.
My team thinks he was murdered.
(At least they brought back some Elvis trinkets, from Bobbie's brother's Elvis store.)
