hypersongs

Phoebe Snow

The New York singer and guitarist whose 1974 debut, a top-five album, holds "Poetry Man" and the blues "Harpo's Blues".

Greenwich Village to Shelter

Phoebe Ann Laub was born on July 17, 1950 in New York City and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey. She took her stage name from a fictional character in early-1900s railroad advertisements, a name she saw on trains. She went to Teaneck High School, spent two years at Shimer College in Illinois without graduating, and played a Martin 000-18 acoustic guitar in Greenwich Village clubs. In 1972 Denny Cordell, co-owner of Shelter Records with Leon Russell, saw her at the Bitter End and signed her. The New York Times described her voice as a contralto grounded in a bluesy growl, and a 2009 review credits a four-octave range.

Phoebe Snow was recorded in 1973 at A and R Recording in New York and Producer's Workshop in Hollywood, with sessions also reported in Los Angeles, Nashville and Tulsa, and released by Shelter in 1974 (July by the album's Wikipedia article, June by the one on "Poetry Man"), 35:36. The credited producers are Dino Airali and Denny Cordell, with Phil Ramone as co-producer, engineer and mixer, while the artist page lists Cordell alone. Cordell said she found the process rather a long and painful study, but it obviously had its rewards.

Hits and later years

"Poetry Man" reached 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1975 and number one on the adult contemporary chart, and the album reached 4 on the Billboard 200 and went gold; Jewish Currents and a fan page say over a million copies. She was nominated for the Grammy for best new artist, opened for Jackson Browne and Paul Simon, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, sang on Paul Simon's "Gone at Last" and backing vocals on "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", and was a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 1975. Columbia albums followed from 1976: Second Childhood (13, gold), It Looks Like Snow, Never Letting Go and Against the Grain.

She sang commercial jingles in the 1980s and 1990s, themes for 9 to 5 and A Different World, and made Something Real (1989), a gospel album with the Sisters of Glory (Good News in Hard Times, 1995), Natural Wonder (2003) and Live (2008, Verve). She toured with Donald Fagen's New York Rock and Soul Revue in 1992 and performed at Camp David in 1999. The 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide called her one of the most gifted voices of her generation, and the New York Times's Stephen Holden described an artist variously labeled a jazz, blues, pop, funk and gospel artist, depending on the record she released. She died on April 26, 2011, aged 60.

Albums

Songs

  • Harpo's Blues Phoebe Snow · 1974

    The second track of her debut, a blues with Teddy Wilson on piano and Zoot Sims on tenor saxophone.

Sources

  1. Phoebe Snow, Wikipedia
  2. Phoebe Snow (album), Wikipedia
  3. Poetry Man, Wikipedia
  4. Phoebe Snow, Blue Desert