Farewell, Phoebe Snow

Phoebe Snow left the earth this morning after complications from a brain hemorrhage she suffered in January, 2010. She was only 59. In that too-short life she helped define the ’70s singer-songwriter movement, and in 1972 gave us “Poetry Man,” the sultry Top 5 hit single that won her a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist and landed her on the cover of Rolling Stone when she was 23. That song, which jumped out at listeners and simply sounded like nothing else before or since, proved to be a fascinating window into her musical future: a perfectly realized capsule of all she would become.

In 1975, shortly after her meteoric rise, Snow gave birth to a daughter who suffered from severe brain damage. Rather than place her in an institution, Phoebe chose to raise her at home and largely dropped out of the music scene, releasing a few albums, performing occasionally (including touring with Donald Fagen and Paul Simon), and lending her warm and identifiable vocals to TV jingles. Her daughter, Valerie Rose, died in 2007 at the age of 31, and in 2008 Snow told the San Francisco Chronicle, “She was the only thing that was holding me together. My life was her, completely about her, from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed at night.”

What follows are bits of an interview we had with Phoebe in 2003. I hope she knows how loved she was, how grateful we are for the music she left us, and how profoundly she will be missed.

I understand when you started playing the guitar early on, you didn’t intend to be a singer. Is that true?

It is true, and people can’t believe it when I tell them that. I thought my voice sounded stupid. I guess I’m my own harshest critic, but I would hear my own voice and think it’s weird and be embarrassed. Singing is the only instrument you use your body to do and nothing else—you don’t have an extension. I felt kind of vulnerable or embarrassed. It’s amazing to me when I see these young people on these reality shows, and they just get up and sing like, “Hey, I’m going to be in show biz!” (sings brassily). I’m like, “Boy, I sure as hell didn’t have that.”

How were you affected by the huge, early success of “Poetry Man”?

I wouldn’t recommend what happened to me with “Poetry Man” to a young artist coming up. Because I didn’t have enough time in the industry school of hard knocks. I didn’t have enough time to learn the floor plan to see what I needed to know, and I think I had sort of a delusional sense of what the album industry was all about. I’m an inquisitive person, I like to know how a business works. I should have had a little more experience under my belt before I came out with this hit record. I just don’t think it’s healthy for a really young person to have their first album be a hit.

What’s the story behind “Poetry Man”?

I wrote it when I was very young and seeing a much older, married man. Not something I would particularly recommend, but then something good—this song—came out of it.

What kind of goals do you have as a songwriter?

I’d like my songs to be memorable (hums). Where they say, “What is that? I really like that,” and it sticks with you. There’s not a whole lot of that out there right now. But I’d like to be that catchy. “I used to sing along to that old Phoebe Snow song.” Maybe that will happen.

—Interview by Holly Crenshaw

Excerpted from Performing Songwriter Issue 72, Sept/Oct 2003

Category: Best of PS