Phoebe Snow, Passes Away At Age 60
Phoebe Snow, perhaps the most imitated singer of the past 35 years, has passed away. She was 60.
Snow died today in Edison, New Jersey , suffering a brain hemorrhage in 2010.
The album “Phoebe Snow” turned the singer, blessed with multi-octave range, into a star. She made the cover of Rolling Stone, appeared on Saturday Night Live — THE show of the mid to late 70’s — and was nominated for a Grammy Award as best new artist.
While her artistic merit has never been denied, like many performers she was never able to duplicate her early commercial success. Her career took a backseat to caring for her daughter, Valerie Rose Laub, who was born in 1975 with severe brain damage.
To help pay the bills he sang commercial jingles for such companies as Stouffer’s and General Foods, that paid quite well.
Her daughter died in 2007. A few months later, Snow started performing again, trying to deal with her loss.
Her poetry became the basis of her lyrics, and she started playing at New York clubs. She signed with Leon Russell’s Shelter Records in 1974 and had a huge hit with “Poetry Man.” She followed with other albums for Columbia and recorded a comeback album in 1989, “Something Real.”
Her most recent album was “Phoebe Snow — Live” in 2008.
“I faded away for a while out of necessity,” she told The Times in 1998. “In hindsight, I missed out on some good or productive years. On the other hand … I really made the only choice I could under the circumstances.”