For a person of a certain age, and I'd hope beyond that, this is really sad news.
The NYT reports that she died of from complications of a brain hemorrhage she had in January 2010, including blood clots, pneumonia and congestive heart failure.
Not long after Ms. Snow’s “Poetry Man” reached the Top 5 on the pop singles chart in 1975, her daughter, Valerie Rose, was born with severe brain damage, and Ms. Snow decided to care for her at home rather than place her in an institution.
“She was the only thing that was holding me together,” she told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2008. “My life was her, completely about her, from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed at night.”
Valerie, who had been born with hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain cavity that inhibits brain development, was not expected to live more than a few years. She died in 2007 at age 31.
Phoebe Snow was a great artist. I imagine that her music would have been pretty easy for people under 45 or so to miss over the past three decades, maybe with the exception of Poetry Man, so I include some videos below the jump.
Poetry Man.
With Linda Ronstadt on Saturday Night Live in 1979, singing The Roches' "The Married Men."
The absolutely gorgeous song "Never Letting Go." (This is just a link, because embedding was disabled. There's another version on YouTube to which one can link, but the sound quality is not as good as good, and it seldom matters more than with this song. I don't know how much other artists sing this song, but only the most confident and proficient should even try to record it.)
Never Letting Go.
If I can just get through the night.
Let the Good Times Roll.
Phoebe Snow was especially interesting because her looks seemed to be on the cusp between Jewish and partially African-American -- and given her voice and styling many people presumed the latter. In fact, she was of Jewish lineage -- she was born Phoebe Lieb -- but culturally she went wherever she wanted.
The name "Phoebe Snow" came from a character in an advertising campaign for -- get this! -- the "clean coal" of its time, anthracite, which was trying to supplant bituminous coal, the burning of which would tend to discolor the clothes of trains passengers.
Says Phoebe Snow
about to go
upon a trip to Buffalo
"My gown stays white
from morn till night
Upon the Road of Anthracite"
If you didn't know of her, and do now, I'm happy to have been of service.