Bobbie Gentry’s second studio album and her masterpiece. The Delta Sweete is a concept album based on modern life in the Deep South. Gentry wrote eight of the album’s 12 tracks, which detail her Mississippi childhood and includes vignettes of home and church life (“Reunion” and “Sermon”), as well as recollections of blues and country hits she heard as a youngster (“Big Boss Man” and “Tobacco Road”). The song “Okolona River Bottom Band”, accented by a sophisticated horn chart and breathy strings, used the same basic cadence as “Ode to Billie Joe”.

The Delta Sweete’s innovative, sophisticated sound is down to Gentry herself, who played piano, guitar, banjo, bass and vibes. Swampy southern grooves mingle with the latest Nashville trends, blue-eyed soul akin to the more celebrated Dusty in Memphis". Lynskey called Gentry “a fabulously mercurial singer and lyricist,” and stated that “she probably doesn’t worry about The Delta Sweete not getting its due as a masterpiece. She told her stories, she made her money, she got what she wanted. What you really need to know about how that felt, about what home means to you once you’ve left it behind for bigger and more complicated things, is contained in these songs.”

In 2019, Mercury Rev released Bobbie Gentry’s The Delta Sweete Revisited, featuring guest performances by Norah Jones, Hope Sandoval, Phoebe Bridgers and Marissa Nadler among others. Lucinda Williams contributed a cover of “Ode to Billie Joe”, the only song featured on the album that did not originate from The Delta Sweete.